61.

Then you should be ashamed of yourself. At least leather is a by-product of producing food for people to eat. Fur is a by-product of cruelty for the sake of looks. You should be forced to sit through a seal slaughter or experience what it's like to have a trap on your ankle. You'd think fur was a pretty awful idea after that.

poetamelie at 10:31AM on May 10th 2008

62. Reverend Mike Shaw in Canada points out that in past centuries, it was the Christians who were leading the way with regards to animal rights and vegetarianism, whereas today, the people leading the campaign are mostly secular. PETA is 1.6 million strong (larger than any pro-life group), yet try and discuss animal rights and vegetarianism with Christians (apart from religion) and all they can think of is the MOVE !

John Woolman (1720-72) was a Quaker preacher and abolitionist who traveled throughout the American colonies attacking slavery and cruelty to animals. "Where the love of God is verily perfected and the true spirit of government watchfully attended to," taught Woolman, "a tenderness toward all creatures made subject to us will be experienced, and a care felt in us that we do not lessen that sweetness of life in the animal creation which the great Creator intends for them."

"Thanks be to God!" wrote John Wesley, founder of Methodism, to the Bishop of London in 1747. "Since the time I gave up the use of flesh-meats and wine, I have been delivered from all physical ills." Wesley was a vegetarian for spiritual reasons as well. He based his vegetarianism on the Biblical prophecies concerning the Kingdom of Peace, where "on the new earth, no creature will kill, or hurt, or give pain to any other." He further taught that animals "shall receive an ample amends for all their present sufferings."

Wesley's teachings placed an emphasis on inner religion and the effect of the Holy Spirit upon the consciousness of such followers. Wesley taught that animals will attain heaven: in the "general deliverance" from the evils of this world, animals would be given vigor, strength and swiftness...to a far higher degree than they ever enjoyed."

Wesley urged parents to educate their children about compassion towards animals. He wrote: "I am persuaded you are not insensible of the pain given to every Christian, every humane heart, by those savage diversions, bull-baiting, cock-fighting, horse-racing, and hunting."

Vasu Murti at 12:19PM on May 10th 2008

63. Why not!!?? How many people do you know that are as TRULY LOYAL as animals?????

They were around here long before we were and will be around well after we are gone. Who is the smartest and who deserves what???!!

Budo at 1:50PM on May 10th 2008

64. The bottom line is this: people who are members of PETA are sociopathic and mentally disturbed, clinically. They have moderate to severe psychosis, and need a place to vent their extremely unbalanced anger issues.

And yes, I mean that sincerely. People who belong to PETA need mental help. Any person who exalts animals over humans, and then destroys those animales out of convenience, is, by definition, psychotic.

So, please....if you belong to PETA, please get help. If you are on the FRINGE of PETA, and aren't aware of the psychosis which grips most members, but you really care about animals (as I do, who has taken in two abandoned dogs myself...doing my part), then join a group like the ASPCA, which is dedicated to TRULY HUMANE treatment of animals.

PETA needs to be ignored, marginalized, and eventually wiped out of existence. Please, dedicated PETA members...please get help.

Their name..."Ethical"...? It's a lie. Please. Get help.

timber at 3:40PM on May 10th 2008

65. Oops...meant "animals", natch, not "animales."

timber at 3:41PM on May 10th 2008

66. timber:

You're wrong! Members of PETA are NOT "sociopathic and mentally disturbed, clinically." In reality, the opposite is true: it takes a perverse mind to find pleasure in harming animals.

Russell Weston Jr., tortured and killed 12 cats: burned and cut off their tails, paws, ears; poured toxic chemicals in their eyes to blind them; forced them to ingest poison, hung them from trees (the noose loose enough to create a slow and painful death.) Later killed 2 officers at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC.

Jeffery Dahmer staked cats to trees and decapitated dogs. Later he dissected boys, and kept their body parts in the refrigerator. Murdered 17 men.

Kip Kinkle shot 25 classmates and killed several in Springfield, Oregon. He killed his father and mother. Said he blew up a cow once. Set a live cat on fire and dragged the innocent creature through the main street of town. Classmates rated him as "Most Likely to Start WW III.

As a boy, Albert De Salvo, the "Boston Strangler," placed a dog and cat in a crate with a partition between them. After starving the animals for days, he removed the partition to watch them kill each other. He raped and killed 13 women by strangulation. He often posed bodies in a shocking manner after their murders.

Richard Allen Davis set numerous cats on fire. He killed all of Polly Klaas' animals before abducting and murdering Polly Klaus, aged 12, from her bedroom.

11-year-old Andrew Golden and 13-year-old Mitchell Johnson tortured and killed dogs. On March 24, 1998, in Jonesboro, Arkansas, Golden and Johnson shot and killed 4 students and 1 teacher during a fire drill at their school.

After 16-year-old Luke Woodham mortally stabbed his mother, killed 2 classmates and shot 7 others, he confessed to bludgeoning his dog Sparkle with baseball bats and pouring liquid fuel down her throat and to set fire to her neck. "I made my first kill today," he wrote in his court-subpoenaed journal. "It was a loved one...I'll never forget the howl she made. It sounded almost human." In June 1998, Woodham was found guilty of 3 murders and 7 counts of aggravated assault. He was sentenced to 3 life sentences and an additional 20 years for each assault.

Theodore Robert Bundy, executed in 1989 for at least 50 murders, was forced to witness a grandfather who tortured animals. Bundy later heaped graves with animal bones.

At 4-years-old, Michael Cartier dislocated the legs of rabbits and hurled a kitten through a closed window. He later shot Kristin Lardner 3 times in the head, before shooting himself.

Henry Lee Lucas killed numerous animals and had sex with their corpses. He killed his mother, common law wife, and an unknown number of people.

Edward Kemperer cut up 2 cats. He later killed his grandparents, mother and 7 other women.

Richard Speck threw a bird into a ventilator fan. Killed 8 women.

Randy Roth taped a cat to a car's engine and used an industrial sander on a frog. Killed 2 of his wives and attempted to kill a third.

David Richard Davis shot and killed 2 healthy ponies, threw a wine bottle at a pair of kittens and hunted with illegal methods. Murdered his wife, Shannon Mohr Davis, for insurance money.

Peter Kurten, the Dusseldorf Monster, tortured dogs, and practiced bestiality while killing animals. Murdered or attempted to murder over 50 men, women and children.

Richard Trenton Chase, "The Vampire Killer of Sacramento," bit the heads off birds, drained animals for their blood, killed animals for their organs, and later killed 6 people in random attacks. One police officer present at the scene of the first murder, confessed to having nightmares about the crime for months afterwards.

"The Kobe Killer," an as yet unnamed 15-year-old boy in Japan, beheaded a cat and strangled several pigeons. Decapitated 11-year-old Jun Hase, and battered to death a 10-year-old girl with a hammer, and assaulted 3 other children in separate attacks.

Richard William Leonard's grandmother forced him to kill and mutilate cats and kittens when he was a child. He later killed Stephen Dempsey with a bow and arrow. He also killed Ezzedine Bahmad by slashing his throat.

Tom Dillion murdered people's pets. He shot and killed Jamie Paxton, aged 21; Claude Hawkins, aged 49; Donald Welling, aged 35; Kevin Loring, aged 30; and Gary Bradely, aged 44.

At 9-years-old, Eric Smith strangled a neighbor's cat. At 13, he bludgeoned 4-year-old Derrick Robie to death. Smith lured the little boy into the woods, choked him, sodomized him with a stick, then beat him to death with a rock.

David Berkowitz, "Son of Sam," poisoned his mother's parakeet out of jealousy. He later shot 13 young men and women. 6 people died and at least 2 suffered permanent disabilities.

Arthur Shawcross repeatedly threw a kitten into a lake until the kitten drowned from exhaustion. Killed a young girl. After serving 15-1/2 years in prison, he killed 11 more women.

Michael Perry decapitated a neighbor's dog. Later killed his parents, infant nephew and 2 neighbors.

Jason Massey's killing resume began with cats and dogs; at 20 he decapitated and disemboweled a 13-year-old girl and fatally shot a 14-year old boy. He claims to have killed 37 cats, 29 dogs and 6 cows.

Patrick Sherrill stole neighborhood pets, tethered them with baling wire and encouraged his dog to mutilate them. He killed 14 co-workers and himself in 1986.

Keith Hunter Jesperson, "Happy Face Killer," bashed gopher heads and beat, strangled and shot stray cats and dogs. He is known to have strangled 8 women. He said: "You're actually squeezing the life out of these animals...Choking a human being or a cat--it's the same feeling... I'm the very end result of what happens when somebody kills an animal at an early age."

Carroll Edward Cole, executed in 1985 for an alleged 35 murders and reputed to be one of the most prolific serial killers in U.S. history, confessed that his first act of violence was to strangle a puppy under the porch of his house.

Robert Alton Harris murdered two 16-year-old boys, doused a neighbor with lighter fluid and tossed matches at him. His initial run-in with police was for killing neighborhood cats.

Rachel Carson wrote:

"Until we have the courage to recognize cruelty for what it is whether its victim is human or animal we cannot expect things to be much better in this world. We cannot have peace among men whose hearts delight in killing any living creature. By every act that glorifies or even tolerates such moronic delight in killing we set back the progress of humanity."

In a 1990 letter to Eric Mills of Action For Animals, vegetarian labor leader Cesar Chavez similarly observed:

"Kindness and compassion towards all living things is a mark of a civilized society. Conversely, cruelty, whether it is directed against human beings or against animals, is not the exclusive province of any one culture or community of people. Racism, economic deprival, dog fighting and cockfighting, bullfighting and rodeos are cut from the same fabric: violence. Only when we have become nonviolent towards all life will we have learned to live well ourselves."

Vasu Murti at 5:53PM on May 10th 2008

67. PETA is a crazy extremist group. I am not against wearing fur or eating meat. Its the best source of protein, and has been historically the best source of warmth.

I don't think we need to test cosmetics on animals, so I don't buy cosmetics that have been. I DO think its ok and necessary to test possible cures for life threatening diseases on animals. I think there should be a uniform code of ethics that labs should be made to abide by in their treatment of test animals, and I think there should be inspections to ensure that this is happening.

But PETA reminds me of the "Pro-Lifers" in that their real agenda is different than their purported agenda. The real agenda of both PETA and Pro-Lifers is to control the behavior of other people. They pretend its about this or that issue, but its really a control issue, one group wants to control women and their sexuality, and another group wants to control all of us, and how we eat, what pets we keep, what we wear, whether we hunt, or in some cases, fish. Here we have one guy espousing above that we must buy "free-range" chicken - see? Again - trying to control the behavior of others.

By the way, free range eggs are very expensive for many people. I wish just one of these stars, when approached by PETA, would tell them, "Hey, my favorite meal is veal, and I'm wearing my white fox coat to my next premier, but you can photograph me naked in that if you want..."

Sydney at 5:57PM on May 10th 2008

68. Vasu, you attempt to make great points through consistent rambling which actually makes you look only like a person who likes to quote either in or out of context the ramblings of others. Therefore, I do not see a point at all of your own that means anything, as anyone can quote another person and attempt to seem intelligent. Humans have hunted through out history, and not all have cooked the meat of the animals, but developed ways to make the meat last rather than having to waste it.

jules at 6:40PM on May 10th 2008

69. Man is an omnivore. Before developing the means to kill animals, man functioned as a scavenger, getting protein from bones (marrow) and flesh uneaten by the original predator.

As man learned to hunt and kill larger animals, meat became a larger part of his diet. In conjubction with this, man alsso learned to domesticate animals for both clothing, food and tools previously provided by hunting.

Due to the high activity level, ancient man didn't develop the problems associated with meat consumption in today's world nor was he subject to the high quantities of sugar and preservatives found in our modern diet.

Many here would lead you to believe that animals bred for slaughter are fed a diet consisting exclusively of grain, when in reality, grain is only used as butchering time nears to increase the fat content (marbleing) for flavor. The plains indians depended almost entirely on the buffalo (bison) for these items, often starting fires and driving large numbers of animals over cliffs to kill or maim them to enable their killing until the advent of the horse in the 1500's by the Spaniards gave them mobility adequate to kill what was needed.
Tribes such as the Navajo, maintained herds of sheep which grazed on grass and provided clothing, blankets, food such as milk in addition to meat and was a stable supplt of meat to supplement the navajo diet as opposed to the gathering methods of plains tribes.

Recent studies have shown that primates such as babboons and chimpanzees not only declare war on other groups, but also murder and eat other primates (monkeys) for food, with the Bonobo Chimpanzee the favorite target of it's larger cousin you see in the zoo or tv.

Critics of rodeo have no idea about rodeo.A champion bull or bronco works approximately eight seconds possibly twice a day for each day of the rodeo. The rest of the time, they are cared for like the valuable animals they are, often kept after retirement until death by the owner. The incident with the racehorse is regrettable, but how many horses race each year without incident? The track was dirt, maybe firm, but not packed and hardened. Horses run in a group naturally, so the poster who complained about "close quarters" knows diddley about horses. As for animal on animal ccruelty, have you ever watched a cat with a mouse or killer whales with a baby seal? Many carnivores bring wounded prey back to their young so they learn to hunt. Also, remember most prey animals are getting eaten while they are still dieing as opposed to the animal hunted by modern hunters who often never know what hit them or die within minutes.

PETA is a cult that attempts to foist its beliefs off on society through deception, fear mongering, shaming and sex. They claim to be ethical, but euthanize animals they claim to want to be well treated and solicit these animals for their so-called "shelters." They should wear swastikas in order to more closely represent what they really are to animals. They get awat with their crap because most people grow up in cities and have no idea about animals or their behavior except what they see on tv! PETA, ALF and Greenpeace all advocate for animals, yet they expect someone else to pick up the tab.

The list of murderers who abused animals means nothing. They may have done these things because they were mentally ill from birth or because people are easy to kill. In almost each incident given, there was some sexual aspect to it so does that have spmething todo with our society? Hitler was a vegetarian too, maybe others as well who were not so stellar individuals, plus was there really a Buddha? There's whale oil in space too, so how far have we really come?

The best thing we could do for animals in today's world is stop polluting the earth, control some species through hunting and utilize living space efficiently. Placing a moratorium on mechanized fishing would benefit both fish and people but as long as we refuseto develope a sane policy for earth management, we all will suffer.

Dedmanrisn at 10:50PM on May 10th 2008

70. Im absolutely sure that PETA can go over the line with their attempt to ban hunting and their crazy schemes, however, they have had accomplishments and in some parts have made America notice the abuse that goes on in popular areas. PETA has its nutjobs but they also have beautiful people who care about animals.

As for the blowing up labs thing.... call me a terroist but I like that xD . I cant see how people can emotionlessly inject animals with chemicals =<

I support PETA in many areas because one thing's for sure, their crazy assholes get shit done.

Yoshimitsu at 9:55AM on May 11th 2008

71. PETA= People Eating Tender Animals

Meat eater at 10:26AM on May 11th 2008

72. They are as bad as Scientologists

Meat eater at 10:28AM on May 11th 2008

73. Who really gives a crap about PETA ? They are ALL a bunch of frikin whacko's. I hunt and will continue to hunt and kill animals to keep adding to my trophy room. What are they going to do about that? Not a damn thing!

Joseph Leblanc at 10:34AM on May 11th 2008

74. The worst thing about PETA: They economize by exterminating animals in their shelters and then funnel thousands of dollars to ALF, Animal Liberation Front, which is the number one domestic terrorist organization on the FBI list:

"The FBI estimates that the ALF/ELF have committed more than 600 criminal acts in the United States since 1996, resulting in damages in excess of 43 million dollars."

This group terrorizes scientists engaged in ethical drug discovery. ALF would rather bomb a lab to "liberate" a lab mouse (so that it can starve or die in the paws of a cat)than to have new life-saving medications. The new book "Animal Research War" details all and is a must read for posters here. Bottom line: PETA supports the highly UNethical treatment of scientists and other humans. People who support PETA need to go back to Ethics 101 in my opinion.

asa at 12:04PM on May 11th 2008

75. New medications and vaccines to combat Alzheimer's disease, diabetes, cancer, heart attacks, infections, leukemia, arthritis and many other serious illnesses depend on laboratory research involving animals, primarily rodents. Contrary to PETA exaggerations, this research is generally done in a humane manner that minimizes suffering. 7 of the last 10 Nobel Prize winners relied heavily on animal research, including the 2007 winner, Sir Martin Evans, who developed the knockout mouse, essential to modern drug development for both humans AND animals.

PETA labels these admirable scientists as "vivisectionists", an inflammatory term from the middle ages. In fact, they're out to block progress and keep us ALL in the middle ages.

Does PETA hate people? I would have to say "yes", particularly scientists.

asa at 12:55PM on May 11th 2008