Why Youtube Debates Don’t Work.

Youtube has made it quite clear that their site is not for debates with their algorithmic demotion scheme.

Numerous videos that did not contain profanity or adult content have been demoted due to the controversial nature of the topic discussed in these videos, resulting in these videos being omitted entirely from the most discussed portion of the site.

This is yet another hurdle Youtube users now need to overcome to interact with fellow Youtubers.

We were unable to post long quotes because of the 500 character limit or outside links to information relating to a subject in video comments because of the spammers and now video responses are being kept from viewers because of this algorithmic demotion.

Don’t get me wrong. Youtube is still one of my favorite sites and I  agree that the character limit and comment restrictions are necessary. But the counter-productiveness of these measures are nevertheless an issue.

In trying to burden abusers Youtube have burdened the real users and in the case of comment ratings has actually given them more to abuse.

The abusers are getting what they want. They’re disrupting the service for all of us and Google has made it harder for people to complain and get these issues addressed.

I suspect this is why i’ve seen considerably less postings by the people I subscribe to in the second half of 2008 ; These issues are wasting the little time they have to dedicate to this hobby.

Activist “Interpretations”

You might know this under another buzzword they use in America – “Spin”.

Apparently they haven’t learned that American style media manipulation doesn’t go far in Canada and that Canadians see it for what it is – Propaganda and selectiveness.

For example, an activist on Youtube is currently trying to convince people that the EFSA condemns the Canadian seal hunt in their December 2007 Report and that it was entirely written to justify a ban, specifically against Canada.

Well, even those who have read the summary of this report would conclude that the EFSA had recognized the methods used as humane, had confirmed the lack of unbiased information in regards to the execution of those methods, and had simply resulted in recommendations ; The Canadian hunt is also only one of the many international seal hunts reviewed in this report.

There is no need to “interpret” these reports and quite frankly people who can’t comprehend summaries are unable to have in-depth conversations on this subject.

Activists want this subject to be oversimplified, so they can omit information and use inflamatory language. And I am not interested in these obtuse games.

Game Over Activists

In 2006 I decided to look into this issue and it is now nearly 2009 and I have come to this conclusion : The issue is CLOSED.

I have read document after document, watched video after video, and have not run into any evidence that I would consider substantial nor do I believe these activists are able to fulfill my requirements in regards to evidence.

Instead of presenting me with hard evidence, these activists have repetitively attempted to give their information more credence by redefining the word “irrefutable” and tacking it on every single piece of selective information they’ve posted or sent to me.

Apparently they did not understand my request and thought I wanted hype. After all, many of the documents they presented were quite open to being refuted with new information and not carved in stone. This is quite common yet when these are refuted the activists respond with claims of bias and post contradictory conspiracy theories.

Scientific opinions differ at times but in this case the information has been consistently against the activists claims that live skinning is occurring, in any substantial, representative amount in Canada

The March 2001 IFAW report, from example, has been severely misquoted in regards to this and actually establishes that the majority of seals are not skinned alive and that only a possibility exists in regards to live skinning.

The alleged probabilities mentioned in the report were questioned by veterinarians and marine biologists, some of which dismissed some of the conclusions in the report. How could this report then be “irrefutable” ?

Every argument i’ve been presented with was based on the exaggeration of these possibilities into “fact” and I suspect that they will never present me with actual evidence, that is unpolluted by their emotional conjecture.

The vast majority of information i’ve acquired was through personal research and not from these people. Very few of them link these documents from their websites, obviously because they hadn’t read them and simply parroted the statements from other sites. Otherwise they’d notice that their “opinions” are not supported by the documents in question.

It’s been this way for nearly three years. No straight answers and no information to make me think they’ve got something.

Nothing but exaggerations and circular manipulations. And I don’t expect them to act in any way different in the future, having been subjected to this nonsense prior to 2006 as well.

There can be no worthwhile discussion with these media manipulators. They’re simply prolonging the issue by calling for a ban, to solicit donations whenever they allegedly get closer to their goal. They know quite well that any issue can be addressed without a ban and that seals are not threatened.

Their so called evidence is insufficient and prejudicial.

Game Over.

Great Greenland 2006

In early 2006, the media had been flooded with press releases from animal activist groups in regards to Great Greenland’s ban on Canadian seal products.

All the anti-seal hunt sites relished this victory against the big bad white hunters and even Paul McCartney had decided to mention it on his 2006 CNN interview with Larry King.

Well, there was no such ban according to the Inuit Circumpolar Council, as stipulated in a March 2006 Press Release from their office in Greenland :

“In past weeks, there have been confusing and misguided media reports in Europe about discussions between Greenland politicians and the publicly owned sealskin processing company, Great Greenland. The discussions have centered on to what degree the company should process sealskins from neighboring waters in Canada.

Some governments have taken these media reports to mean that Greenland has imposed an import ban on sealskins from Canada. ICC is alarmed that governments are enacting legislation based on this misinformation .”

Furthermore, the president of ICC Greenland, Aqqaluk Lynge, responded to Paul McCartney’s claims by stating : “I saw the CNN interview with Paul McCartney and his wife stating that Greenland is boycotting Canadian products, which of course is untrue, and 90 percent of what else he said was pure rubbish. And he doesn’t even know it.”

This is only one of the major misinformation campaigns these activists have engaged in. And they’re not stopping at the mainstream media, having flooded Youtube with old Martin Sheen clips in which he states significantly higher figures from before 2005 and slideshows featuring faked photographs.

The Red Lobster Boycott Scam

Let’s start off this blog with a question.

Which of the following import Canadian Seafood into the states ?

1. Red Lobster
2. Whole Foods Market
3. Trader Joe’s
4. All of the above

The answer is, of course, all of the above.

So, we are to then assume that because Red Lobster is boycotted that the other two companies are as well, right ?

No ! The other two companies are actually commented for doing exactly what Red Lobster is doing – Limiting their imports to products originating from outside of the area where the seal hunt occurs.

Whole Foods Market currently claims “Seafood normally sourced from that area, including snow crab, wild PEI mussels, and bay shrimp, will be replaced by similar product from other areas of the world” (source)

Trader Joe’s claims “…we do not purchase any seafood items from the areas where the killing of seals is taking place. Our seafood products that are labeled ‘Product of Canada,’ come from reputable suppliers on Canada’s West coast, or come from Alaska and are simply processed on Canada’s West coast.” (source)

Darden Restaurants had even issued another statement this year in regards to the hunt, claiming “Red Lobster is not involved in the seal hunt in any way and does not buy or sell seal products. In fact, we don’t buy any products at all from Newfoundland“. Yet the activists claim they’re lying because they wont boycott ALL Canadian Seafood products over this issue.

Rather interesting…

Project For Awesome – My Entry

HELP JOSHUA GET A SERVICE DOG

Please watch this video and help.

Thank you.

Anti-Seal Hunt Activism & Spamming

It appears that the anti-sealing activists on are blatantly ignoring the rules against spam on Youtube.

Not only do they abuse the spam reporting system to label everything they dislike to read as spam but they are now spamming any video related to the 2010 Olympics with off topic comments about yet another idiotic boycott.

And what makes it idiotic ? The fact that the Olympics, like the Pacific fishery, is on the opposite side of Canada. The fact that it isn’t a related industry, like the Pacific fishery.

Yes, they tried boycotting the Pacific fishery in their failed 2006 seafood boycott over the seal hunt over in the Gulf of St. Laurence.

You see, it appears that everything is up to their interpretation, including the rules on spam on Youtube. Even though it is spelled out, in black and white, that repetitive, cut and pasted comment posting is against the rules.

But no. They think they’re exempt from all rules because of their “cause”. That the rules on spam don’t apply to them because these are inconvenient to their “cause”. And that the repetitive posting of identical messages in one video’s comments is not “spam”, nor “harassment” but “lobbying” and “activism”.

But then, these are the same people that think bigotry and vile sexual comments are acceptable.

Firefox & Youtube Issue

You can speed loading of Youtube considerably when using Firefox 3.0.4 by accepting cookies from whatever Youtube site you use.

I use ca.youtube.com so i’ve had to add a specific exemption to allow cookies from that specific site.

*.youtube.com doesn’t appear to work for the international sites’ cookies but www.youtube.com works for the main site’s cookies.

To access your cookie exemptions :

• click on Tools on top of your browser
• click on the Options menu option
• click on the Privacy icon
• click on the Exemptions… button
• in the box under “Address the web site:” type in the address without the prefix (http://) then click on the Allow button
• click on the Close button to end

Hope this helps.

What is the point ?

Is this really an issue ? Because I’ve actually spoken with plenty of vegans and vegetarians and they seem to be fine with my statement that it is a personal choice to eat meat. It’s only when I go online that some of these people try to convert me by claiming I should fell guilty about it.

It is quite obvious that these people have no patience, what so ever.

I don’t even have time to explain my situation – They start pushing guilt almost immediately with assumptions in regards to my eating habits.

I don’t have the slightest guilt for eating meat in the past and I don’t think I need to have guilt to be on either side of the fence. And there’s no point in badgering me to try to feel this guilt.

I am completely open to vegetarian and vegans meals. The meals served at a restaurant called The Green Door here in Ottawa are excellent. But I think it is counterproductive to try to shame people into this lifestyle.

There is no schedule here. People can’t be rushed into such decisions and guilt has nothing to do with how viable it is to a person.

I’ve personally reduced my meat intake, not because of the scare tactics but because I thought it would be healthier.

I’m not planning on removing it entirely from my diet and I have my reasons for this, that i’ve investigated thoroughly. Yet some people just can’t accept it, making me wonder – What is the point ?

The only person that would benefit from this easy conversion are the people that are trying to convert people.

The people that get converted easily by guilt don’t get to make an informed decision. They just get fed propaganda to keep them from going back to meat and it eventually fails.

Why does it need to be “no meat” when “less meat” saves animals as well ?

So what if some of these people don’t want to compromise ? They aren’t the ones making the decisions. They aren’t the people that will need to buy and prepare these meals.

The LIE of the Universal Morality

The activists love to claim how moral they are and how superior their morality is to others. Yet they cannot escape the fact that there is no universal belief in regards to morality even within the vegetarian community.

In June 2002, Time Magazine and CNN conducted and published an online poll in which 10,007 adult Americans were asked specific details in regards to their habits when it comes to vegeterianism.

Of the 4% that claimed they were vegetarians or a variant, 10% claimed that “animal rights” was the primary reason why they were vegetarian and 11% claimed that their “love of animals” was why they had chosen their lifestyle.

Furthermore, only 42% of these 400 or so people claimed they thought the “slaughter of animals” was “murder” and 57% listed themselves as “semi-vegetarian”.

They cannot claim to have a morality supported by a significant amount of people and by claiming they do, they LIE and void their claims of a higher morality.

But then many of them condemn animal testing while they use medicines derived from such testing. And some of them even support harrassment against individuals and terrorism…