Month: August 2005

Minnesota Governor Rejects PETA’s Request To Protect Walleye Pike

In July, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals’ Karin Robinson sent a letter to Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty.

That letter asked Pawlenty to make it illegal for fisherman in Minnesota to catch the state fish, the walleyed pike.

Instead, the Governor’s office released the following statement,

The following is a statement from Governor Tim Pawlenty regarding a request from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) to declare walleye off limits to fishing in Minnesota:

“PETA continues to display goofy judgment. Fishing is part of our way of life in Minnesota – moms, dads, kids, and grandparents enjoy beautiful summer and winter days fishing. We care for and enjoy our natural resources the right way. The PETA ‘Fish Empathy Project’ is nutty and misses the mark. Fishing is not, as they claim, the same thing as hooking a dog through the mouth and dragging them behind your car.

“PETA should stay out of Minnesota’s proud fishing lifestyle. Because of their letter, I’m going out for a walleye dinner tonight.”

Source:

Pawlenty rejects PETA ‘fish emapthy’ request. Associated Press, August 4, 2005.

Governor Pawlenty’s Statement Regarding A Request From PETA To Declare Walleye Off-Limits To Fishing. Press Release, August 2, 2005.

I Heart My Tivo

I should have know that the last thing I needed was a Tivo. I’m already a TV junkie, and the Tivo just made that much, much worse.

I bought the Humax DRT-400, which I goes for about $300. This is a Tivo Series 2 with just a 40gb hard drive, but this particular model includes a DVD recorder so programs captured by the Tivo can be burned to DVD (like many consumer DVD recorders, it only accepts DVD-Rs for some reason). The presence of a DVD recorder was crucial for me — I wanted a way to quickly and easily get programs off the Tivo. You can — and I have — add the Tivo to a home network, and from there transfer files to a PC and burn them to a DVD, but that’s a few more steps than I wanted to do on a regular basis.

I’ve been hearing people rave about the Tivo interface for years, and I was amazed. I expected to find the sort of glitches and design problems that seem to plague consumer electronics, but the interface is a thing of beauty. Subscribing to every episode of a show so I don’t miss a single episode of “The Life and Times of Juniper Lee” was a snap. So was searching through listings for that favorite childhood episode of “Buck Rogers.”

I can also look for programs based on a keyword search. For example, I’ve got a recent thing for pirates, so I’ve set up a keyword search that shows me all programs that have the word “pirate” in the title or description. Its not perfect since its a straight text search — for example, a show that used the term “buccaneer” was not highlighted since it didn’t meet the search term. I’ve got about a dozen of these search terms that I check a couple times a week.

I was less impressed with the Tivo Suggestions feature, wherein Tivo tries to guess what you might like to watch based on what you’ve watched before. But then, my habits and interests are so quirky, these sort of suggestion systems never work for me. And there are so many other ways to drill down to find hours of TV to record, that I rarely check out Tivo’s suggestions.

As I mentioned, recording those programs to DVD was essential for my purposes, and the DVD burning process is pretty much flawless. The interface does a good job of walking the user through the process of selecting which program to use, title the DVD and burn. Tivo does a very good job with the menu system it creates. I’m used to DVD recorders that add ugly-looking block text menu to their DVDs. The Tivo uses the same fonts and graphics from its interface a on the DVDs, which is leaps and bounds beyond most other DVD recorders I’ve used.

If a program is too big to fit on a single DVD-R, the recorder does a very good job of indicating how many parts the program has to be split into and letting the user pick which parts to save to DVD.

The other advantage of the Humax Tivo with the DVD recorder is the ability to record video such as from a video camera to the Tivo and then burn it to a DVD. I use this for largely for one of my obsessions — recording in-game video from my computer. Thanks to the Humax Tivo, I now have dozens of DVDs of my WoW character adventuring (i.e., dying over and over).

Finally, the Tivo Series 2 can be connected to a network. The box only has USB ports, so you have to use a USB Ethernet setup. I bought a cheap Linksys USB Ethernet connector, plugged it into my network and everything worked without any configuration on my part (other than telling the Tivo to use DHCP). As I mentioned before, you can transfer files from the Tivo to the PC, but I doubt I’ll ever do that. Instead, I installed it primarily to play music and show pictures stored on my PC through the Tivo. That worked okay. The picture playing feature worked as I expected, but I was annoyed that with the music feature I couldn’t set the system up to play my music in the background while I scheduled programs, etc. If you want to play music, you have to stick with the music playing screen. That’s sort of pointless on a box with so many different options and things to do.

Otherwise, the only real downside to the Tivo is paying $300 for the box and then still having to pay a $12.99/month subscription fee. So far, though, the fee is more than worth it. This is easily the best gadget I have ever owned.

PETA Launches Campaign Comparing Animal Use to Slavery

Since it was so successful with its “Holocaust On Your Plate” campaign, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has followed that up with a traveling exhibit called “Are Animals the New Slaves?”

Note the oddity of the title — new slaves? Domestication of animals is believed to be about 12,000 years old. There’s nothing new about it — in fact, since animal domestication far predates any historical slavery, the exhibit would have been better called “Were Slaves the New Animals?”
Anyway, PETA special projects director Dawn Carr told WTOC-TV that,

The very same mindset in the mind today when we have animals in circuses, animals in factory farms that are beaten, branded, chained. These animals treasure their lives and want to live every bit as much as you or I do.

You can almost imagine some 19th century animal rights activist being asked if he could free a slave or a chicken which one he’d do, and having the activist reply that he’d free the chicken. Presumably, to Ingrid Newkirk, a rat is a pig is a dog is a slave.

Source:

Animal rights group showcases exhibit. Liz Flynn, WTOC TV, August 4, 2005.

PETA Asks Palisades Park to Stop Squirrel Slaughter

In July, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals sent a letter to the mayor of Palisades Park, California, asking her to put an end to a city program of poisoning squirrels.

In a press release, PETA said,

Today, following a barrage of complaints from outraged Santa Monica residents, PETA fired off a letter to Santa Monica Mayor Pam OÂ’Connor, urging her to order city employees to immediately remove all pesticide currently being used to poison ground squirrels at Palisades Park and to establish strict policies prohibiting the use of poisons in Santa MonicaÂ’s parks. PETA points out that if the city is concerned about the possibility of the spread of disease, it should be targeting fleas and not squirrels or other animals.

Poisons cause immeasurable suffering and prolonged deaths for the animals who ingest them and for “nontarget” animals who consume—even in part—the poisoned bodies. As PETAÂ’s wildlife caseworker, I often receive requests for information on proven humane methods of managing urban wildlife populations. For instance, if city officials are concerned about disease outbreaks, they should be targeting fleas rather than squirrels. To prevent the spread of plague, an online pamphlet produced by the LA County Department of Health called Facts About Plague in Los Angeles County outlines an effective flea-control strategy that employs bait stations to distribute insecticide dust on squirrelsÂ’ fur as they enter the stations. The flea powder, harmless to squirrels, kills the fleas living in squirrelsÂ’ fur, and when the squirrels carry the powder back to their subterranean homes, the powder also kills the fleas living in these burrows.

“Death from the poisons being used by the city is slow and agonizing,” says PETA Wildlife Biologist Stephanie Boyles. “No one knows how many animals have suffered and died, but the mayor has the power to stop this cruel program and the obligation to stop any violations of local, state, or federal laws relating to the poisoning.”

But PETA didn’t quite have all of the facts in the matter.

Palisades Park Mayor Pam O’Connor told the Santa Monica News that all poison bait had actually been removed in June. Moreover, the use of poison bait had been ordered by the Los Angeles County Department of Health, which PETA cites in its letter as favoring alternatives to poisoning!

O’Connor said,

The City of Santa Monica is not performing any ground squirrel suppression measures at this time. We stopped the last week of June, removing all the bait from the stations.

As you know, the City was ordered to suppress the ground squirrel population [by Los Angeles County]. The coastal belt of California is one of the high-risk areas for plague. Keeping the ground squirrel population down is a precaution against humans and pets being infected.

And while PETA’s letter said it had received “a barrage of complaints from outraged Santa Monica residents,” city officials told the Santa Monica News they had only received a complaints from a handful of people.

Judy Rambeau, assistant to the City Manager in charge of community relations, told the Santa Monica News,

I’ve gotten numerous calls and emails from two people. We heard a lot from the same people over and over and over again.

Of course, in PETA World, if two activists each call and e-mail officials 12 times, that translates to dozens of complaints!

Source:

Animal rights group calls for end to squirrel killings. Jorge Casuso, Santa Monica News, July 29, 2005.

PETA Calls On Santa Monica Mayor To End Cruel, Deadly Squirrel-Poisoning Program. Press Release, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, July 27, 2005.

U.S. FDA Bans Antibiotic Baytril In Poultry

In July, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued a report announcing that the antibiotic Baytril would be banned from use in poultry effective September 12, 2005. The drug will remain on the market and approved for use in treating infections in dogs, cats and cows.

The FDA took the extraordinary move out of concern that use of Baytril in poultry could lead to antibiotic-resistant form of the campylobacter bacteria. Campylobacter is common in the intestines of turkey and chickens, but it doesn’t usually cause the animals disease. When Baytril is administered to poultry, it tends to lead to the emergence of antibiotic resistant forms of the bacteria.

The FDA fears that, while not causing illness to poultry, these antibiotic resistant forms of campylobacter could find their way to human beings, impairing the ability of existing antibiotics to treat these human infections.

The Associated Press reported that,

Resistant bacteria my be present in poultry sold at retail outlets. [FDA commissioner Lester] Crawford noted that since the drug was introduced for poultry in the 1990s, the proportion of resistant campylobacter infections in humans has risen significantly.

That can prolong the length of infections in people and increase the risk of complications, Crawford said. Complications can include reactive arthritis and blood stream infections.

Bayer, the manufacturer of Baytril, has 60 days to appeal the FDA’s decision.

The full FDA report on Baytril can be read here (2 mb PDF file).

Source:

FDA bans use of Baytril in poultry. Randolph Schmid, Associated Press, July 29, 2995.

Once Kids Go to The Circus, They Don’t Realize Animals Are Even Alive

The Royal Hanneford Circus spent five days in Westland, Michigan in July. Members of Animals Deserve Absolute Protection Today and Tomorrow showed up to protest.

ADAPTT member Jim McNellis summarized the group’s objection to circuses when he told a reporter for the Westland Observer,

The circus has no educational value. It’s teaching kids that animal are objects, not living creatures.

This is good to know — I’d hate to take my daughter to a circus and have her emerge thinking that elephants and lions are inanimate objects rather than living creatures. I’m not quite sure how seeing moving, animated animals would lead her to that conclusion, but its apparently had that effect on McNellis, so anything’s possible.

Source:

League’s circus attracts crowds and protesters. Darrell Clem, Westland Observer, July 31, 2005.