Reality Check For Vegans

North America cannot go vegan. Why not ? Because of the cold temperatures in winter on the continent.

The whole northern part of the continent is incapacitated for several months when it comes to farming so we would all be dependent on fruits and vegetables grown in the south and even the land that is currently used to grow feed for animals isn’t enough.

Rain forest would be leveled to fulfill our demands and more  fuel would be used to transport this material north, whose economy would be hindered because there would be no meat, pork, poultry or seafood exports to the rest of North America.

And at the moment there is a debate whether Eco fuel is or will be diverting food from our plates to our cars.

It’s time to stop thinking the world is one gigantic temperate zone and to assume that veganism is a viable choice for everyone ; Even the southern United States is subjected to devastating frost spells from time to time.

There is no scientific evidence that moderate consumption of meat is unhealthy for human beings, regardless of the half baked scientific research found in the conspiracy theory laced pro vegan books.

Opinionated Vegan Scoffers

It appears that some people have a hard time distinguishing the act of having an opinion from that of being opinionated, resulting in a self defeating position on Youtube.

As I’ve said on previous posts here and on Youtube, it is rather counterproductive to post videos and leave comments open to simply remove individual comments and block people that just want to discuss the subject at hand.

Youtube’s comments were meant to be for discussions and if one doesn’t want to discuss the subject, the comments can be disabled entirely when the video is uploaded.

But some people tend to want to only hear comments that don’t challenge their views, in any way. And some even go as far as believing these are spam and troll posts, which is utterly ridiculous and is contradicted by Youtube’s own definitions.

These people obviously do not want to discuss their opinions, at all, and want to ram their opinions down everyone’s throats via Youtube. It’s as simple as that.

And no, vegans and vegetarians are not all like this – I know quite a few that aren’t.

Sea Shepherd Raided in Australia

The Steve Irwin, a ship owned by the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, was raided by Australian federal authorities today while in port in Hobart, Tasmania.

Raw footage filmed by an Animal Planet crew, which was destined to air on Whale wars, was confiscated, this footage containing evidence in regards to the ramming of the Yushin Maru No 3, a Japanese wailing ship.

The following is a video of the incident in question :

This is only one of the blatant acts of piracy these vigilantes have performed while claiming to “save whales”. But how many whales have they truly “saved” ?

It is logical to conclude that they are not saving whales but merely delaying the capture of whales by a few hours. The quotas are set and if one whaling ship is delayed in obtaining these whales, another in the fleet will capture more.

So it is quite obvious that these are just self aggrandizing acts meant to impress people that subscribe to simplistic ideologies. And how do they justify the potential risks of harm and losses of life ? They vilify people :

I’m done with Columbia House

I’ve been a regular member of either their Canadian CD club or Canadian DVD club since the late 80’s and other than a few problems, i’ve had few complaints. But now they are just antiquated and annoying.

I had fulfilled my agreement with them within three months of joining their DVD club in 2007 and when I asked to cancel my membership a few months later, I was told that I wouldn’t have to worry about responding to those Director’s Selections cards so I stayed on hoping to grab some specials, which I did. But something obviously happened a few months back to their computers.

Along with the positive response program, I later joined another program to keep them from sending me their catalogs by mail. After all, I mostly ordered online anyway and I usually just recycled it all. But after a few months I started receiving the catalogs again and the cards told me I had to respond by a certain date or i’d get the director’s selection.

I of course thought it was a glitch that would be eventually addressed and just decided to respond online anyway, which I did because it took no effort. And I knew that my credit card wouldn’t be charged cause I didn’t subscribe to automatic billing, so I gladly responded to the somewhat sporadic mailings.

Well, a few weeks back I was asked if I wanted to buy Pineaple Express and having not seen the film I of course proceeded to respond online that I did not want to recieve that Director’s Selection. Yet today, to my surprise, I received it and was told it had been sent by default by the customer service representative.

So, if it weren’t for the multiple failures I wouldn’t have received this unsolicited shipment – Their positive response program failed. Their catalog mailing preferences failed. Their online response system failed.

Oh yes, they’ve got a “new” club now that tries to address the “unwanted shipments”. But why didn’t they ask me to cancel my membership and join the new one ?

In a day and age when people are actually just downloading films, is it wise to annoy those that don’t ?

The Cold That Didn’t Want To Go Away

I’m finally getting over my second cold, in three months. Argh ! What a pain that was and it’s still lingering with some coughing and sinus problems. I guess i’ll need to wade through the email and videos I haven’t been able to watch.

No news on Youtube and my suggestion to allow full blocking. But i’ve since just changed my settings for to not receive the paranoid activist’s ramblings via email.

Seriously, this person is obviously mentally ill, having insisted that I work for the Canadian government several times. So I guess I’m his nemesis in his delusion. Lucky me ! :-/

Anyhow, I think a comment filter would also be nice on Youtube. I wonder if someone already suggested it ? Hmm.

Down the e-Memory Lane

I just found this great site that lists BBSes by area code, bbslist.textfiles.com.

Man, does it bring up memories – Wasting time on the Amiga 500 and 1200 downloading from Shockwave or Jammy’s and chatting away on Proton Palace’s message boards.

The paid access points at the time were mostly Windows based so I think I got my first email account on either Proton Palace or Tumbler’s Tavern, the later being where I had accessed the Fidonet groups and then a small selection of music Usenet groups.

Strangely enough I remembered joining my local BBSes in 1993 but it must have been earlier because I remember some of those short lived boards, like The Local Pub and Code Conjurers. Hmm.

But of course I drifted away from the BBSes after I joined the National Capital Freenet and got free usenet and telnet access to Cleveland’s Usenet feed. I was hooked and went with Magma for a few years with dial up then Sympatico for high speed until now.

I wonder if anyone from the old days would remember Agent Subliminal.

Beyond The Off-Topic “Drama”, Logic Prevails

The activists may claim they are not against aboriginal hunting but their actions say otherwise.

• Greenland’s industry is mostly comprised of Inuits yet they protested it and even if they claim they don’t protest it now, Greeland’s industry was included in the EFSA report.
• The Inuit in Northern Canada and Greenland shoot seals, as do most hunters in the hunt, and the later are being attacked for it. It is then logical to assume that the methods used are not acceptable in anyone, unless the activists are prejudiced against white hunters.
• The Inuit eat seal meat and export the fur and oil, causing a demand for the later. The white hunter fill the remaining demand but are then accused of wasting meat, that the protesters have been rendering unsalable with their unscientific propaganda about heavy metal contamination.
• The activists imply that Caucasians don’t and shouldn’t eat seal meat. There is no valid reason for non-natives to not eat seal meat and Caucasians have done so through-out history in the Nordic states, Russia, Great Britain  and Eastern Canada.
• The activists claim that the Department of Fisheries and Oceans state that harp seals are “fish” yet the rules in regards to the seal hunt is listed under the Marine Mammal regulations, since 1993, where there is no mention of this animal being classified as “fish”.

If it weren’t for their inability to address these issues, they would not be trying to make the issue personal. They want flame wars and they’re harassing people to get it, while Youtube does nothing.

Their actions confirm that they are simply Canada bashing. They’ve spammed videos about the 2010 winter Olympics for no other reason than because it was Canadian. The same reason why they’re asking people to boycott Canadian seafood that had nothing to do with the hunt.

This tactic fails to impress the informed, which is anyone with a map. But many vegans are willing to jump onto any cause in which the meat eaters  are vilified and these are plenty of kids in the states, Britain and Australia to manipulate with the contrived fictional tales of seals being killed in front of their parents and lies about their IUCN status.

I believe Youtube will likely enable me to block these trolls, eventually, so I will keep posting comments as usual. So i’m hoping that my appeals will be heard sooner than later.