Monday, February 05, 2007

PETA Resolution

I do realize that most of you don't subscribe to The Outdoor Wire.

I encourage you to subscribe.

In the meantime, here's the wrap-up from Jim Shepherd, who has been following the trial of PETA members, who picked up unwanted 'pets' from animal shelters, transported them a few blocks, then injectected the animals with lethal substances (for which they have no license to possess, let alone use) and tossed the bodies into Dipsy Dumpsters behind the nearest Piggly Wiggly store:

PETA Trial Ends

PETA employees Adria Hinkle and Andrew Cook were found innocent of the majority of charges brought against them for animal cruelty and obtaining property by false pretenses. Rather than facing criminal charges for picking up animals from an animal shelter and veterinarian's office and killing them, rather than taking them for possible adoptions, Judge Cy Grant reorganized the charges prior to sending them to the jury, dropping most of the felony charges and consolidating several charges into a single one.

If convicted of the criminal charges, the PETA employees, who had admitted picking up animals and killing them only moments after having told veterinarian office employees they were going to find them new homes, could have faced jail time. Instead, they have been found guilty of littering, receiving suspended 10-day jail sentences, 12 months' probation, 50 hours of community service, $1,000 fines and nearly $3,000 of restitution.

Their "death van" was confiscated by the town of Anhoskie, North Carolina.

The facts of the case made it completely obvious the pair had, in fact, committed all the offenses of which they had been accused.

The Piggly-Wiggly dumpster containing pets that had been picked up only hours before around Ahoskie were identified by the veterinarian and shelter workers who had handed them over to Hinkle and Cook.

The forensic evidence showing the animals had been killed by lethal injection of chemicals found in their so-called "death van" was never called into question.

Adria Hinkle testified under oath that they had, in fact picked up the animals, injected them with drugs, bagged them, and tossed them into the dumpster. She also testified that "maybe" they hadn't been forthcoming with the fact they had no intention of putting the animals out for adoption, it was "possible" they might have been misleading, and perhaps it was a "mistake" to toss the animals into the dumpster (an action she admitted having done previously).

So why were they found innocent?

Through what might be best called "smoke-and-mirrors" of their defense team.

After all, their lawyers argued, there had to be "malice" involved in felony animal cruelty charges. The pair of defendants had no malice, they argued, they were simply doing the "most compassionate thing possible" for animals no one wanted, sparing them lives of loneliness and confinement (hope my kids don't read about this when I get older).

Further, the animals themselves had no intrinsic value, so there were really no demonstrable damages in the case. For an organization that says it would oppose medical experimentation on laboratory animals - even if it meant not finding a cure for AIDS - to argue that the animals in question had no value should make your blood boil.

PETA raises hundreds of millions of dollars annually - allegedly fighting to defend the rights of animals - all animals. But their convenient manner of disposing of animals given to them by animal caregivers shows the total lie upon which their so-called pro-animal organization is founded.

PETA kills thousands of animals every year - and will continue to kill them for years to come. They purchased walk-in freezers for their Virginia headquarters to store animal carcasses and have paid thousands of dollars to an animal cremation service to dispose of them later. But they are acting out of "compassion" not indifference.

They dress up in outrageous costumes - or demonstrate in the buff - to draw attention to their animal rights movements - and collect funds from people stupid enough to believe they're serious about their so-called work.

They terrorize children with books which characterize parents who serve meat as mass murderers; they have drawn no distinction between meat processors and the Nazis who murdered millions of people in World War II, and they have no compunction about giving money to environmental terrorists.

When Adria Hinkle and Andrew Cook were arrested and charged with felony animal cruelty more than 15 months ago, we had hoped this trial, if nothing else, would shed some light on the PETA organization.

It accomplished exactly that.

Hinkle and Cook will not be going to jail for killing animals given to them with the belief they were going to be placed in adoptive homes.

While it might look like a big win for PETA, it's really not.

This trial has forced PETA to admit that it does not rescue animals, it kills them.

The defense used by their attorneys to avoid felony animal cruelty charges was that these animals had no intrinsic value. That should make everyone writing a check to PETA for the "ethical treatment of animals" think twice - and maybe stop sending checks to an organization that isn't protecting animals - at least not when it's an expense or an inconvenience for PETA.

If that's a win, I can only wish PETA many more courtroom successes.

--Jim Shepherd


Note that you can subscribe to The Outdoor Wire here.

Sunday, February 04, 2007

Sundie Funnies

Michael Bane
Michael Bane has finally got his Downrange.TV website pumped up enough to show some Actual Content. I expect this website to become a frequent site-of-interest for those of us who consider Guns not only a tool, but a means of spending a weekend at the range with friends. Among other features he has a forum set up (I've registered and actually posted. I didn't have anything particularly interesting to say, but I got to see my name in print.)

Superbowl
Did you watch the SuperBowl this weekend? I didn't. I don't like spectator sports, but perhaps I'm just weird. If you're among the thirty-plus million American Spectators (I can make up statistics with the best of 'em) who only watch it for the commercials, I'm reliably informed by Kim Kommando that this is where you can view the commercials online. Note that you may be enjoined to load some software to enable 'full-screen videos'. Great, if you like commercials ... which might very well be the Best Part Of Television.

Family

Frequent Readers may recall that last October I took a week hiatus to visit my son, Ben, in Utah. Ben is the father of Jake the Untouchable, uncle of The Alleged Jack and Samantha the Nailer. I'm happy to report that Ben, his wife and son in tow, has moved back to the Left Coast in search of a new career. Now living in Northern California, according to last reports (I spoke to him on the phone last night) he intended to drive to Oregon on this day to visit family. It's a six-and-a-half hour trip, so I asked him to phone me when he reached the home of his maternal grandmother so I would know it when it was a reasonable time to visit them. He originally cited an 8pm arrival time, then 10pm, then 1am. Since it's now after 11pm, I'm guessing that he won't be calling me for a couple of hours. I think I must have lost my mind when I asked him to call me on arrival. I forgot whose son (mine) I was talking to.

Blogging may be interrupted tomorrow as I will be out-of-town visiting family, and happy I am to be doing so.

Chris Muir and Day By Day Cartoons
Word is that DBD will be out-of-town toward the end of this month

Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us

and

Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us

(Click on the images to see the full strips.)

Looks like we'll be spending some time at the DBD and SigArms websites in a few weeks.

Flash Drives
SWMBO was doing some market research (read: thumbing through the ad inserts of the Sunday Papers) this morning, and ran full-tilt into the Staples ads.

She's aware that I've been looking for memory stick (thumb drive, flash drive, whatever) and noted that a 2GB Microsoft Flash Drive was available for about $30. I've been looking for a hi-cap memory stick for some months, and I've been disgruntled that I couldn't find bargains much better than the 1GB SanDisk drive I bought 18 months ago for ca. $90.

Today she found a 2GB stick for $30. After mail-in rebate for $30.

An inch lower down in the newspaper ad, she found a 4GB stick (from MS) for $55, after a $75 "instant rebate".

Yah, sure, we trundled right down to the local Staples store and I shelled out $55 for a 4GB flash drive. I already have a 1GB drive (I know, I already mentioned it) which I use for transferring data between work and home puters, and whatever other purpose seems convenient ... such as instant backup of my work data.

The reason I wanted a new drive was to save all of my URL's, ID's and passwords. I figure there's less exposure to hackers if I cut&paste these private data items instead of typing them, in case someone has a keyboard memory software hack on my PC. Besides, I don't have to write passwords in my day-planner, right?

Chances are I'll transfer my password files to the 1GB memory stick, and keep the 4GB stick for backups. Whatever technique I finally choose, I'm happy with the transportable extended memory options which are available to me now for a very low price.

Remember when there were limited (eg: Zip Drive) options in transportable memory?

Remember when RAM memory was rule-of-thumb priced at $100 per MB?

Four GB is roughly equivalent to ... what, 4,000 MB? I just bought 4,000 MB of memory for $55 ... a resource which (if available "back then" would have cost me ... a lot of money.

I recall buying a 460KB hard drive, twelve years ago, for about three times as much money.

Two months ago, I bought a 2MB Sandisk memory chip for my HP camera for about $60 in a special marketting drive. This was, at the time, touted as "Top Of The Line".

I do love the computer industry. If you can't find the deal you want, at the price you want .... just wait a couple of months until the market catches up with your expectations.
.




.