Day: May 1, 2004

Just Your Average, Ill-Informed Activists

Activists with In Defense of Animals protested at the University of California Berkeley on April 19, and brought shovels in an attempt to dig up a courtyard above an underground animal research lab. Police stepped in and confiscated the shovels without incident.

The protest was part of World Week for Animals in Laboratories, and the activists displayed their knowledge of animal research. For example, protester Jennifer Blum told the San Francisco Chronicle,

It’s pretty disgusting to think about what’s happening beneath our feet — monkeys having electrodes implanted in their brains, kittens having their eyes sewed shut.

Just one problem with that thought — according to Helen Diggs, head of Berkeley’s Office of Laboratory Animal Care, the university is not involved in any research involving kittens. Perhaps Ms. Blum should be more concerned about what’s going on in her head more than what’s going on beneath her feet.

Source:

Activists denounce research on animals. Charles Burress, San Francisco Chronicle, April 20, 2004.

Scottish MP Calls for Seal Cull

Labour MSP Alasdair Morrison stirred up plenty of controversy in April with his suggestion that Scotland follow Canada’s lead in resuming seal hunting.

Morrison said,

Culls are not unique to the Outer Hebrides or indeed to other parts of Scotland. It happens in terms of mink, hedgehog and deer, and again, if required, it should also happen with the seal population around the Hebrides and around the British Isles.

According to the Scotsman, about 38 percent of the world’s population of grey seals and 40 percent of European common seals are found in Britain, and of those about 90 percent breed in Scotland. Seal hunting was banned in 1978 after negative publicity over the Canadian seal hunt.

Scotland’s Advocates for Animals was not happy with Morrison’s suggestion, with a spokesman telling The Scotsman,

Increasingly, seals are being persecuted in the name of fisheriesÂ’ protection when commercial overfishing is the real problem. Time and time again, the fishing industry claim stocks are not recovering because of the seals, but the industry needs to look at itself. The issue over seals has grown in international importance and it is our duty to protect them.

Regardless, a seal hunt is not going to happen anytime soon in Scotland. A spokeswoman for the Scottish Executive told The Scotsman, “The Scottish Executive has no plans for a seal cull. Evidence suggests that in general seals do not have a significant impact on fisheries stocks.”

Source:

Fury over call to cull Scotland’s seals. Andrew Denholm, The Scotsman, April 19, 2004.

Will Animal Rights Activists Try to Disrupt Batman Shoot?

Director Christopher Nolan’s decision to film some Arkham Asylum scenes for the Batman Begins film at the National Institute for Medical Research in Mill Hill has led some British newspapers to speculate that animal rights activists might try to disrupt the filming.

A group called the Mill Hill Anti-Vivisection Alliance has protested the facility in the past and The Edgware & Mill Hill Times quoted animal rights activist and MHAVA member Pam Kinnunen as saying,

It’s extremely sad that this has to go ahead. I believe this institute is all about cruelty to animals. It’s an awful shame that this is the location that has been chosen to shoot the Batman film.

Warner Brothers was apparently fearful enough of the possibility that it had the NIMR facility sign a confidentiality agreement. The Mill Hill facility conducts research into communicable diseases, including malaria and tuberculosis.

(On the other hand, animal rights activist probably can’t do half the damage to Batman that George Clooney did in “Batman & Robin”).

Sources:

Animal rights activists line up against Batman. Edgware & Mill Hill Times, April 21, 2004.

Criminal Proceedings Move Forward Against Ralph Hahnheuser

After numerous delays, an Australia court found there was sufficient evidence to move forward with a criminal trial against animal rights activist Ralph Hahnheuser. Hahnheuser is accused of adding pork products to the feed of a shipment of sheep intended for the Middle East.

Hahnheuser has admitted that he did so, but nonetheless told the Australian court that he plans to plead not guilty to the charges.

The statute Hahnheuser is being charged under requires that the government show he spiked the feed in order to cause an economic loss through public awareness. Hahnheuser maintains his client was only motivated by the welfare of the sheep and did not intend to cause an economic loss to those shipping the sheep.

The next scheduled hearing in the case is on July 26.

Source:

Protestor to stand trial over sheep contamination. ABC News Online, April 23, 2004.

Animal liberationist on trial. The Standard (Australia), April 24, 2004.

What Happened to the Fair Use Religion?

Boing! Boing! is the best weblog, period, as far as I’m concerned, but it’s amusing sometimes to watch the contradictions that show up there occasionally. For example, there was Cory Doctorow who usually runs around extolling the virtues of people producing their own media outside of the staid and boring medica corporations, but who constantly referred to Mel Gibson’s Jesus flick as Gibson’s “vanity project.” Post a novel that couldn’t get sold and that nobody’s going to read on your web site and Cory will link to it in a second — make a movie that everyone derided as a career killer and a joke and watch it become one of the biggest movies ever, and it’s a dumb “vanity project.”

Or look at this post by Xeni Jardin,

Indeed. When I first ran accross the site a month or two ago, I was surprised to see they were (without permission) posting excerpts from an article about Hustler publisher Larry Flynt that I wrote for Wired News. Seeing your work snipped out of context to promote a political agenda you’re not part of is almost as disturbing as… um… a talking, evangelical sock puppet that wants your porn.

“Without permission”??? What happened to the Holy Church of Fair Use and Mandatory Licensing at Boing! Boing!?

Jayson Williams: Still an Inhuman Piece of S—

I just don’t know how Stepehen Smith could follow the same trial I did and write this about Jayson Williams’ stunning acquittal on manslaughter charges in the death of a limousine driver,

Williams was known for drinking, playing with guns, and being irresponsible with both. He was never known for being inhuman. Evidently, a jury knew that much.

Huh? Like Smith, I think it’s clear this was an accident, but Williams acted so egregiously before and afterward that there was ample evidence to convict on the manslaughter charge.

But leave his guilt or innocence aside and just focus on the inhuman part — this trial featured testimony of one of the most inhuman acts I can imagine outside of killing someone.

So Williams is holding a shotgun and it goes off, accidentally or otherwise, hitting the limousine driver in the chest. The driver collapses to the ground where he is dying. What would you do in that circumstance? Scream for help? Call 911? Try to give the injured man first aid?

Here’s what a piece of shit like Jayson Williams would do — he wiped off the shotgun and, as the limousine driver lay dying, pressed the gun into the man’s hands to try to make it appears as if the fatal wound was self-inflicted. One of the last things the limousine driver ever saw in this world was a spoiled punk kneeling over him trying to frame him for the gunshot wound.

And then, Williams went for a swim.

Piece. Of. Shit.