Category: Uncategorized

Four British Activists Charged

According to the animal rights web site ArkangelWeb.Org, on October 8 four British animal rights activists appeared in court and were charged with crimes related to their alleged harassment of individuals connected with Huntingdon Life Sciences. According to ArkangelWeb.Org, all four were remanded into custody.

The four activists are Gavin Medd Hall, Bob Lewis, Kevin White and Wilmer White.

Sources:

British justice at its very best!!!. ArkangelWeb.Org, October 10, 2002.

4 More Animal Rights Activists In Prison. ArkangelWeb.Org, October 8, 2002.

Coulston Foundation Shuts Down

Faced by enormous financial problems, the Coulston Foundation shut down in September. The 266 primates under the foundation’s care will be transferred to the Florida-based non-profit Center for Captive Chimpanzee Care.

At its height in the 1990s, the Coulston Foundation had over 600 primates and more than 100 employees engaged in various research projects.

The Coulston Foundation had faced protests, opposition and acts of terrorism from animal rights activists over the years. It also had a spotty record for ensuring the welfare of its animals, being formally charged four times by the USDA for violating the Animal Welfare Act. The Coulston Foundation’s fate was sealed when the National Institutes of Health, the Food and Drug Administration, and the US Department of Agriculture all withdrew their financial support .

The Foundation then fell behind on its debt payments and the First National Bank of Alamogordo filed foreclosure papers on the Foundation in December 2001. Foundation CEO Fred Coulston tried but failed to find a buyer for the laboratory and agreed to transfer the primates to the CCCC, which received a $3.7 million grant from the Arcus Foundation to purchase the Coulston Foundation’s buildings and equipment.

Sources:

More than 300 research chimps and monkeys retired, turned over to preserve. Richard Benke, Associated Press, September 18, 2002.

Coulston lab shuttered; monkeys get new caretakers. New Mexico Business Weekly, September 18, 2002.

Do Children Who Harm Animals Later Harm People?

It has become almost a mantra within both animal rights circles and the larger mainstream media that children who harm animals are on the path to harming human beings. But is this claim true?

Manchester Metropolitan University researchers Heather Piper and Steve Myers looked at such claims and found a surprising lack of any actual valid evidence for it. They write,

A few years ago, the notion that abused children were likely to become abusers was common. This is no longer accepted as true. In this case the dominant view is that harming animals is directly linked to, or can be treated as part of a cycle leading to, violence towards people. It is suggested that the relationship is clear cut, consistent and predictable. This argument suggests that harming animals can be a predictive variable in indicating future harm to people. There are serious flaws in this argument. Although there may be some disturbed individuals who are cruel towards both animals and people, extreme cases do not provide the basis for generalized conclusions.

Piper and Myers identify two major problems with the alleged link between harming animals and harming people. First, the studies that claim to find such a link rarely define animal abuse in a methodologically sound way,

Few studies define what is animal abuse or violence or harm. Does cruelty include pulling the legs off spiders, or only those of vertebrates? Does it matter that one society eats dogs and another keeps them as pets? Richer children may legally kill animals through fox hunting, whereas poorer ones are prosecuted for similar behavior towards a cat or a dog.

Second, such studies have a deeper methodological flaw in who they choose to study,

Research supporting the supposed links is based mainly on extreme and non-representative samples. Accounts suggesting links between those who have harmed animals and later violence toward humans often rely on the same small sample of extreme criminals in the US. Researching a limited population to produce a broadly applicable generalization is problematic. Any number of life experiences could also be shown to correlate with the behavior.

A further problem is that much of the research tends to suffer from fallacies of logic. Just because some serial killers have harmed animals, this does not mean that all or even the majority of those who harm animals will become serial killers. Yet this stance is taken in much of the literature.

Piper and Myers conclude that “Social workers should not uncritically accept the arguments that have been put forward about linking animal and human violence.”

Source:

Missing Link. Heather Piper and Steve Myers, Community Care, October 3, 2002, p.38.

Just How Many PC Users are Switching

In Apple’s otherwise lackluster quarterly financial results, the company is trying to make hay of the fact that a relatively high number of units sold at its retail stores — 40 percent — were sold to people who are new Mac users. The only problem is their measuring sales by processor rather than units sold.

The only area Apple is seeing any increase in sales is in its newest dual-processor PowerMacs, so measuring new adopters by processor is a nice way to massage the numbers.

Apple’s getting royally screwed thanks to Motorola, and it’s only going to get worse for the company as Intel and AMD continue to jack up speed of their processors.

Duh — North Korea Never Abandoned Its Nuclear Weapons Development

In 1994 the Clinton administration reached an agreement with North Korea — we would give them billions of dollars and they would halt development of nuclear weapons. We gave the billions, but what do you know, the North Koreans proceeded fulls team ahead with their nuclear weapons program (in fact, the program apparently didn’t get into full swing until after the Clinton-brokered agreement). And, of course, North Korea has in recent years been aggressively working on long-range missiles that could reach the United States (Clinton eased sanctions against North Korea after it promised to stop testing its long range missile program). I can’t wait to see the spin whereby Clinton says he spent every waking moment worrying about North Korea and had a plan on the table to deal with this before that evil Bush administration scuttled his master plan.

Who Are You Calling Terrorists?

In an op-ed published in the Washington Times, Steven Zak accuses conservative anti-animal rights writers of falsely branding animal rights activists as terrorists. But Zak undermines his own case by glossing over actual animal rights terrorism.

Zak writes,

Granted, some animal activists have committed serious acts of vandalism and other crimes. But the wrongers’ wrath isn’t directed solely at them. Mr. [Wesley J.] Smith, for instance, condemns groups like People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and even the moderate Humane Society of the United States.

First, it is interesting that Zak lumps all animal rights related crimes into two categories: vandalism and “other.” So the firebombing of a Minnesota University laboratory was just an “other” crime. The death threats and razor-blade laced letters to researchers and farmers are just “other” crimes. Certainly vandalism is a major part of animal rights crimes, but animal rights terrorism has progressed way beyond just simple vandalism.

Second, of course, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals deserves condemnation for its support — moral and otherwise — of terrorism. Zak doesn’t even bother to address the issue of PETA’s Earth Liberation Front donation nor its donation to the legal funds of several individuals accused of animal rights terrorism. He doesn’t bother to dismiss or explain away the numerous statements made by PETA insiders such as Ingrid Newkirk or Bruce Friedrich that encourage and justify animal rights terrorism.

Third, Smith’s comments about the Humane Society of the United States were completely justified, although twisted and distorted by Zak’s failure to actually outline Smith’s complaint. Smith wrote,

. . . known ELF and ALF activists are routinely invited to speak at the yearly Washington, D.C. animal-rights conference sponsored by PETA and the Humane Society of the United States.

I believe HSUS is simply a participant in AR 2002, not a sponsor, but aside from that this is a valid question — why does HSUS participate in FARM USA’s annual animal rights conference which features animal rights terrorists front and center? If there were an anti-animal rights conference which featured groups that advocated burning down the businesses of animal rights activists, I know I would not attend and I cannot imagine any other anti-animal rights group would attend. So why does HSUS want to associate with known criminals and advocates of animal rights crimes?

(The irony, by the way, in Smith attacking animal rights activists is that his view of medical research is rather close to the animal rights position. Smith is, for example, a vocal opponent of transgenic research which he claims undermines human dignity).

Hopefully Zak’s next op-ed or article defending PETA and HSUS will actually address the salient issues.

Source:

Exposing animal-rights terrorism. Wesley J. Smith, National Review Online, October 2, 2002.