Ryan Leaf Retired

During the week of downtime, one of the earth shattering events that occurred in the world was the retirement of San Diego/Tampa Bay/Dallas/Seattle “quarterback” Ryan Leaf retired.

The really odd thing was that some of the stories claimed Leaf retired from football. Give me a break. Leaf might have been on the field occasionally, but whatever else he was doing, Leaf was not playing any recognizable form of football (if Leaf was playing football, then my cat is playing chess when it swipes at the pieces on the board).

Leaf is a fascinating contrast to someone like Lance Armstrong. Leaf had a lot of physical gifts and apparently no desire or mental discipline to actually harness those gifts. Back in 1998 the San Diego Chargers gave up two first round and a second round pick as well as two very good players in order to draft Leaf. At the time the book on Leaf was that he might be even better than Peyton Manning (who went no. 1 in the 1998 draft — Leaf went second).

Instead in a horrible career, Leaf threw almost three interceptions for every touchdown, alienated teammates everywhere he went, and generally wasted the physical prowess that many of us armchair quarterbacks would kill for.

The one real regret Leaf will probably have is that he never got to play with fellow bad boy and underachiever Lawrence Phillips. It’s a real shame those two never found themselves on the same team.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Ants?

The Los Angeles Times wrote a profile this week of Milton Levine who, in 1956, created a novelty craze with his Uncle Milton Ant Farm. Since 1956, Levine’s company has sold more than 20 million ant farms and sales for the product are still strong.

The reporter decided to call People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals for their take on ant farms, and PETA’s Stephanie Boyles obliged with the following,

Ants are sentient beings, like we are, and have a right to life like we do, and they shouldn’t be shown the level of disrespect the producers of ant farms show them. We can learn about ants without having an ant farm. Kids end up getting tired of them and they perish.

Usually anti-animal rights folks are told that they are being disingenous when they claim that animal rights will inevitably be pushed to its logical outcome of granting insects and other very primitive life forms rights. It is nice to see PETA admit that it thinks even ants are “sentient beings” like us and should be accorded rights.

Source:

Creator of the Ant Farm Finds That His Tiny Workers Can Still Pull Their Weight. David Kelly, Los Angeles Times, August 5, 2002.

The Reality of Animal Rights Terrorism Is More Interesting than the Parody

LancasterOnline.Com staff writer Ryan Robinson recounted a bizarre example of poor ethics at the American Egg Board. The editor of Nutrition Up-Close — which is a publication of the American Egg Board — took a parody story about the Animal Liberation Front and ran the story in his newsletter as if it were true.

The editor, Donald J. McNamara, claims that he ran the parody on purpose to demonstrate how desensitized people have become to ALF-style actions. Robinson writes,

The editor of Nutrition Close-Up said he lifted it from a satirical piece on the www.theonion.com Web site. He purposely ran the bogus news, he said, so he could follow it up with a commentary in an upcoming issue about the public’s desensitization toward such misdeeds by activists.

“I’ve only gotten two calls since the article ran, including yours,” Close-Up Editor Donald J. McNamara said, citing that fact as support for his theory. “It amazes me that with places being burned down and firebombed by animal rights groups, the public has become immune to that.

“Without public outrage to these things anymore, we allow people who use these tactics to achieve their goals.”

Robinson goes on to suggest a lame “ARAs and the ag. industry should try to find common ground”, but avoids the obvious that running a parody from The Onion as fact is the sort of unethical tactic that the American Egg Board would loudly condemn if animal rights activists pulled this sort of stunt.

The way to beat the animal rights movement is to take the high road and avoid engaging in such ridiculous tactics. McNamara could have reprinted plenty of accurate stories about AR terrorist attacks, such as the smoke grenades set off in a pair of Seattle office buildings in July. Running a fake story on purpose does not do much to inspire confidence in future claims by the American Egg Board.

Credibility is a commodity that is hard to acquire. The American Egg Board and other groups shouldn’t be so quick to call their credibility into question.

When people see Photoshopped pictures at VegSource.Com they are right to be skeptical of things that appear on the site. And people will now be asking whether the American Egg Board is playing it straight or bending the rules to make a point.

Source:

Moos on the loose: 71,000 cows freed from “human captors?’. Ryan Robinson, New Era (Lancaster)/LancasterOnline.Com, August 5, 2002.

Moby Doesn't Use Products Tested In Animals — Not!

On AR-NEWS an animal rights activist conveniently posted an excerpt from a book, Teen People: Real Life Diaries, which features a section by techno artist Moby explaining his reason for being a vegan and what that entails. According to Moby,

IÂ’ve been a proud vegan for fourteen years, since I was twenty-one. That means I donÂ’t eat meat or chicken or even fish (they have feelings too). And I donÂ’t eat products that come from animals, like milk (unless, of course, itÂ’s soy milk) or cheese. As you can probably guess, you wonÂ’t catch me wearing leather or fur. But thatÂ’s not all. I also refuse to buy products that have been tested on animals.

Really? That’s interesting because in early January of this year Moby was attacked by a stray cat he came across in New York City and was briefly hospitalized. According to numerous reports on the incident, Moby received a tetanus shot and antibiotics while hospitalized — all products which were extensively tested in animals.

Apparently in Moby’s book all animals are equal, some — such as pop singers — are just more equal than others.

Source:

Moby: The Voracious Vegan. Excerpts from TEEN PEOPLE Real Life Diaries. by Moby, as told to Linda Friedman.

Moby ends up in hospital after stroking stray cat. Ananova, January 4, 2002.

The Corruption/Hunger Chart

Here’s a little chart I put together to highlight the connection between corruption and hunger in Africa. While the FAO and World Food Program end up asking for tens of millions of dollars in Western aid to feed Africa every year, estimates of money lost to corruption in Africa every year are in excess of US $100 billion.

Country

Corruption

Food Insecurity Problems

Angola US $1 billion in 2001 oil revenues “missing”(FAO appeals for $5.2 million
aid)
1.4 million people need “urgent assistance” (FAO)
Malawi Corrupt government officials sold 160,000 tons of grain last Fall; $8 million
in European Union aid diverted — EU demanded return of the money in July
2002 (FAO appeals for $1.6 million aid)
168,000 families at risk (FAO)
Swaziland $2 million aid diverted for down payment on $55 million presidential jet (FAO
appeals for $1.4 million aid)
21,000 families at risk (FAO)
Zambia Ranked as one of the most corrupt countries in the world by Transparency
International; hundreds of millions stolen in the 1990s (FAO appeals for
$2.6 million aid)
62,000 families at risk (FAO)
Zimbabwe President orders seizure of white-owned farms, causing food crisis; millions $ US aid money missing (FAO appeals for $16 million
aid)
600,000 families at risk (FAO)

Virginia First State to Apologize for Eugenics

Back in May, Virginia became the first state to apologize for its eugenics programs which included mandatory sterilization of “genetically inferior” individuals.

Virginia carried out such sterilizations beginning in 1924 and didn’t actually formally abolish such programs until 1979. In that 55 year period, it sterilized about 8,300 people, most of them individuals who were institutionalized due to mental retardation.

It doesn’t surprise me that Virginia created such a program in the 1920s — after all the idea of perfecting humanity was a prominent feature of both right and left wing ideologues of the time. This created fertile ground for the eugenics movement, and its ill-informed reading of evolution and natural selection.

It is shocking that any of these programs remained in force after the revelations of Nazi atrocities.

Source:

Virginia apologises for eugenics policy. The BBC, May 3, 2002.