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K, so Joe Biden’s a liar.  That’s hardly big news, is it? It’s not like the American people bought a vice-presidential pig in a poke, after all.  But buying vice-presidential puppies from a … the  horror! … breeder, now that’s news.  Even more newsworthy is the governmental response.

In case you missed the basics, Lyin’ Joe was much quicker than his boss.  He wanted a pup, so he went out and got one - a German Shepherd from breeder Linda Brown in East Coventry, PA.  Ah, how sweet.

But not in whacko America.

After the local rag wrote up the story, readers started posting comments, says said local rag.  Ugly, hateful, insane comments:

Following a story about Brown and Biden in the Daily Local News, readers posted 131 comments, some chiding Biden for having the Secret Service with him when he went puppy shopping and others complaining he did not get the dog from a shelter.

Brown was taken to task for selling pedigree dogs.

Brown said she has read the comments, even the one that said she was sued.

“I’d like to meet that person,” Brown said, adding that she has not been sued.

Some people were outraged about the photograph of Biden holding a 5-week-old puppy, Brown said. But, the breeder points out, Biden only came to select a puppy on that visit, left it with its mother and returned three weeks later to take it home.

Brown was not only vilified in posted comments to newspapers but also on the Web site of People for the Ethical Treatment Animals, or PETA.

According to a Dec. 12 press release from the animal rights group, it aired its controversial TV commercials “Buy One, Get One Killed” in Biden’s home state of Delaware after he bought his dog from Brown. The commercial blames euthanization of animals in shelters on people who purchase pets from breeders.

Goodbye, choice.  Every decision we now make is monitored by those who deem themselves to be more pure than us, those who live on a higher moral plane.  Nevermind that supposedly sentient purebred dogs have a right to breed and bare pups just like mutts.  Doesn’t matter; mutts are morally superior.  Tell that to our purebreds, Cammie and Pepper.

But the outraged psycho-moralists were just the beginning of Brown’s problems.  Perhaps the shirts the agents of oppression were brown, too:

Brown also was cited for record-keeping problems and warned about maintenance and sanitation shortfalls by the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture.

“I was cited for a piece of kibble on the floor and five strands of dog hair. They took a picture of that, they walked around, snapped pictures and don’t tell you why,” said Brown, who disputes all the items where she was written up.

Brown’s case was heard by District Justice James DeAngelo in South Coventry on March 31. She was found “not guilty” for each citation, the judge’s office confirmed Wednesday.

Chris Ryder, press secretary for the Department of Agriculture, said Brown was inspected in December because of a complaint. He said it was department policy not to release the name of the person who complained.

Is it just me, or did Ryder’s comment sound like it fell just a bit short of an apology?  But then, why should an Agency of the State apologize for overtaking a private enterprise, terrorizing its proprietor, and actually bringing her up on charges that cause embarassment and worry, and take time and money to defend.  It’s her fault for daring to be an entrepreneur and not a government lackey.

What a sad, disturbing story.  And even sadder is this:  It happens all the time.

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or those of you not familiar with the lingo, let me quickly tell you before you click that little arrow that NSFW stands for “not safe for work,” and as you might guess from the broccoli lust in the image, this video is definitely NSFW.  That is, unless you work at a lingerie model agency.

So if you’re at work, I’ll describe it to you.  It shows women in the sort of state of undress that would cause al Qaeda to plan another terror attack to take out the Great Satan.  They are lithe, lingerie clad, and given to provocatively licking and sensually fondling … vegetables.  In soft light.  With nasty music.

In a sign that our civilization has not completely crumbled (yet), NBC rejected the ad, which was submitted by PETA (People Eat Tasty Animals) for a Superbowl showing.

The message of the ad is simple enough, in bold headlines between the photos:

Studies show vegetarians have better sex. Go Veg.

I take issue.  Most vegetarians are young, for example, while thirty somethings constitute only 19 percent of all primary
grocery shoppers, they account for 26 percent of vegetarian shoppers. Since they’re basically younger, they’re going to have basically better sex, with our without a veggie diet.  That’s if you can define “better sex.”  PETA doesn’t.  And I don’t really want them to.

Be that as it may, it wasn’t the words that killed the ad, it was the images, which according to PETA, NBC summarized as:

• licking pumpkin
• touching her breast with her hand while eating broccoli
• pumpkin from behind between legs
• rubbing pelvic region with pumpkin
• sex with broccoli (fuzzy) [and edited by me]
• asparagus on her lap appearing as if it is [well, I can't really let that description in this blog]
• licking eggplant
• rubbing asparagus on breast

You get the idea.  Do you also get the idea that PETA never intended NBC to run this ad?  Indeed, its Web site shows eight other ads classified as “too hot for TV,” most of them apparently too hot for the same sort of reasons.

If they really wanted to get an ad on the Superbowl, you think they’d have learned by  now.  But of course, they don’t want to pay a gazillion bucks to get an add on the Superbowl.  They want to produce an ad the networks can’t run, get it rejected and get a bunch of publicity.  Like this.  I’m a pawn.  It’s no different than their scantily clad demonstrations, which are guaranteed to make the sex-starved evening news.

(I guess you could conclude that if a lot of vegetarians are young women who are prone to taking off their clothes in public, then it would explain why they have more - if not better - sex.)

I post this up under the “Our Crumbling Civilization” banner in part because PETA in all that it does is emblematic of crumbling .  They’re too addled to understand that humans have the God-given gift of sentience and other animals don’t, and society is too enthralled by their reliance on sexy publicity to whack ‘em upside the head.

But more, it’s here because of how thoroughly exploitative of sex our society has become, and how hypocritical we are about it.  Watch NBC any evening and you’ll see tops lower and skirts higher than any you’ll see on any street because they’ve found it’s easier to get viewers through great bodies than through great drama.  Yet when they rightly turn around and axe the PETA ad, they do it without a blush of shame.

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n John 21, which takes place after the crucifixion and before the resurrection of Jesus, we’re told the story of several of his disciples, who do what men do when confronted with a tragedy of earth-shaking proportions: They go fishing.  And as if Jesus being crucified was not bummer enough, there were no fish - empty nets from dusk ’til dawn.

But Jesus appeared before them and told them to cast their net on the other side of the boat and as they say in the Bible, behold, the net became so heavy with fish they could barely haul it in.

Nets full of fish. To be eaten.  By people. Jesus says so - not just here but also when he divided the fish to serve the multitudes.

Not that any of this matters to the people at PETA (which if memory serves stands for People Erroneously Traumatized over Animals).  Michelle Malkin set off a Twitter-storm this morning when she linked up this piece about about PETA’s new campaign to rename fish “sea kittens” to discourage their consumption.  Quoting PETA:

People don’t seem to like fish. They’re slithery and slimy, and they have eyes on either side of their pointy little heads—which is weird, to say the least. Plus, the small ones nibble at your feet when you’re swimming, and the big ones—well, the big ones will bite your face off if Jaws is anything to go by.

Of course, if you look at it another way, what all this really means is that fish need to fire their PR guy—stat. Whoever was in charge of creating a positive image for fish needs to go right back to working on the Britney Spears account and leave our scaly little friends alone. You’ve done enough damage, buddy. We’ve got it from here. And we’re going to start by retiring the old name for good. When your name can also be used as a verb that means driving a hook through your head, it’s time for a serious image makeover. And who could possibly want to put a hook through a sea kitten?

As a PR guy who stands for the ethical treatment of PR guys, I take great offense. We just promote the product, we don’t design it. We can’t do anything about slime or scales or biting faces off if the product is designed specifically to be slimy and scaly with a propensity for face-biting.  It’s not bad PR that gets fish eaten, it’s good-tasting fish flesh.

This is not the first time that fish have been recast as land animals.  Long before there were sea kittens, there was Chicken of the Sea - made famous by Steve Martin when he and Sara Jessica Parker shacked up at the ritzy El Pollo del Mar in LA Story.  That’s a name that’s got it right.  Fish are for eating, just like chicken (which are so tasty I suppose PETA would call them Farm Kittens).

But seriously for a moment here, PETA is particularly offensive because it extends moral relativism far past such timely issues as Israel vs. Hamas to state that we are morally equivalent to fish, slugs and microbes - worse even, less than equivalent.  Here’s an example, taken from a cute but appalling book of fish stories on the PETA sea kitten site:

Sally is a sea kitten with an attitude.  While all other sea kittens are washing themselves or chasing balls of yarn, Sally is busy swimming upstream to see where life will take her next.

Unfortunately, years of watching her friends and family being hooked through the mouth and dragged into a harsh, alien world above have driven her mad with grief.

Bitter and insane, she spends her days plotting revenge against the land kittens who live such happy lives in comfortable homes, free from the terror of being eaten.

That’s the entire kiddie story.  Its message - besides that fish are sentient, capable of fear, grief and anger - is that violence and terror are appropriate responses to the eating of animals.  That’s the evil that lurks behind all the supposedly cute - but really quite awful - illustrations of sea kittens on the PETA site.

PETA has its Sally the sea kitten with an attitude, but here’s a fish story I like more.

Billy went fishing.  His sharp hook snared quite a few of those scaly, slimy creatures, which he hauled up and threw into a bucket. Then he went home, cut off their heads, gutted them, scaled them, cooked them and ate them.  Yum!

Update: The Nose on your Face has chimed in:

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ETA may think ethically about animals, but it has some serious ethical issues dealing with people. The organization’s chosen communications vehicle - outrage and outrageousness - is good at getting attention, but is it effective to their larger mission of saving animals?

Previously, PETA has offended most of the world by comparing the butchering of animals to the holocaust. in effect comparing Jews to pigs. Now they’re exploiting a much smaller issue, but one that also raises big issues.

PETA’s latest ad focuses on an act of cannibalism that occurred on a bus that was crossing the empty plains of Manitoba on July 31. If you haven’t read details of the incident, you might want to think twice before reading the quote below; it is unbelievably disgusting:

[Prosecutor Joyce Dalmyn] said Mr Li had severed the victim’s head with a large knife and then carried it up and down the bus, brandishing it to passengers and taunting police.

He was also observed “cutting body parts from the victim and eating those body parts”, she said. A plastic bag later found in his pocket by police contained his victim’s ear, nose and part of his mouth.

This is a story that should upset all decent humanity, but we should be particularly concerned about the poor victim, his family and the people who were on the bus and have to deal with the memories and burned in images.

PETA has no compassion, as usual, for human suffering. Always opting for the extreme, they are now running this ad:

The concluding paragraphs, if you’re having trouble reading them, take the analogy further, saying the same thing happens to many “sensitive” victims who “value their lives.” It says if the ad offends, think of slaughtered animals and consider becoming a vegetarian.

As well you should. There are lots of good reasons for being a vegetarian, just as there are lots of good reasons for being an omnivore. But there’s no good reason for exploiting tragedy.

Worse, the ad reeks of PETA’s contention that animals and humans are spiritual equivalents. They feel and fear, for sure, at some level, but they do not have the capacity to “value their lives.” Valuing is much too complex and subtle a process for a chicken or cow; it was a gift bestowed on us by God so that we could live at a higher level, and to higher standards, than mere animals.

The truth of PETA is seen in how they treat people. They offend them and hurt them and seem not to value them much at all (witness their outrage when Palestinians killed a donkey in a terrorist attack - they had never taken an anti-terror position when mere people were killed). They, it appears, are not much better than animals at all, which may be why they see equivalency where we don’t. But they shouldn’t expect we higher beings to blithely follow them down to their level.

Back to my original question: Do these sorts of communications work? Yes, to an extent. They have succeeded in finding for PETA everyone who feels the way they do, giving a bunch of otherwise powerless fringe activists some social, but not political, clout.

But because PETA’s approach is so offensive to so many, the group’s communications strategy holds it back from ever becoming a broader social movement, which translates as more people not becoming vegetarians and more animals being slaughtered as a result. But PETA is having too much fun being outrageous and offensive to worry that their strategy isn’t working and poor, pitiful, all-knowing, all-feeing animals are suffering as a result.

Hat-tip: Jim

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he envirocrats succeeded this year in getting one fireworks show canceled because of imagined or fleeting impacts on animals. It didn’t take long for PETA to ratchet up this single ban, of Gualala CA’s show (here, here, here), into a call for a nationwide ban of 4th of July fireworks.

Speaking on Fox Business (here; sorry I still can’t load clips into the new layout), PETA spokesdope Lisa Lange (wasn’t that a comic book heroine?) said it is specifically because 4th of July fireworks shows occur only once a year that they are such a threat to wildlife.

Well, the shortness of the fireworks display actually has a lot to do with this. Animals, not just birds, but dogs and cats, when they hear something once a year that sounds to us like entertainment, but to them it’s bombardment. I mean these sounds are supposed to sound like bombs to us … they don’t know that they’re not completely under attack.

But no matter; to PETA it’s bombardment, and that means fireworks shows should be banned from sea to shining sea in this land of the free PC-chained and home of the brave indoctrinated cowards:

Fox Business: Are you suggesting that we should just cancel fireworks displays across the country?

Lange: I’m suggesting people should consider it, absolutely. … This is something that will make an animal … feel that it’s under attack.

And if you live in a backward, un-PC place that refuses PETA’s suggestion? Well, then she advises, “Stay home if you can.” Do not participate in patriotic displays.

Me? I’m going to wear fur to the next fireworks display and stand there chewing big fat sandwiches made from recently slaughtered animals. But others will catatonically fall in line behind Lange and start showing up at City Council meetings demanding that the good night’s sleep of birds be placed above pride in our country’s birth and its subsequent greatness.

And in many cities, where “leaders” are mere followers, PETA will prevail and another heart-stirring and grand American tradition will begin to go the way of the community Christmas display.

A Swiss farmer walking back from killing a whole field full of wheat swings his scythe and cuts decapitates some wildflowers alongside the road. With those corrections, I have the verbs right, according to Swiss law.

Cutting wildflowers isn’t just one of those things, anymore in Switzerland, not since the Swiss government added some language to their constitution requiring “account to be taken of the dignity of creation when handling animals, plants and other organisms.”

Welcome to the New Age. Welcome to the secular state where humans are just more primordial ooze not to be considered any higher or better than anything else, be it another mammal, a plant or … virus?

Note the last bit of the addition to the Swiss constitution: “other organisms.” In this new way of thinking, who knows whether it would be appropriate for a mere human to kill a bunch of viruses or bacteria in order to overcome a sickness? Who are we to say we’re better than any of our Ooze Brothers?

Indeed, who knows? Here’s what the Weekly Standard has to say about how the Swiss dealt with the hypothetical farmer — was he a murderer, or just some guy whacking some flowers?

No one knew exactly what [the new words in the Swiss constitution] meant, so they asked the Swiss Federal Ethics Committee on Non-Human Biotechnology to figure it out. The resulting report, “The Dignity of Living Beings with Regard to Plants,” is enough to short circuit the brain.

A “clear majority” of the panel adopted what it called a “biocentric” moral view, meaning that “living organisms should be considered morally for their own sake because they are alive.” Thus, the panel determined that we cannot claim “absolute ownership” over plants and, moreover, that “individual plants have an inherent worth.” This means that “we may not use them just as we please, even if the plant community is not in danger, or if our actions do not endanger the species, or if we are not acting arbitrarily.”

The committee offered this illustration: A farmer mows his field (apparently an acceptable action, perhaps because the hay is intended to feed the farmer’s herd–the report doesn’t say). But then, while walking home, he casually “decapitates” some wildflowers with his scythe. The panel
decries this act as immoral, though its members can’t agree why. The report states, opaquely:

At this point it remains unclear whether this action is condemned because it expresses a particular moral stance of the farmer toward other organisms or because something bad is being done to the flowers themselves.

I say if the Federal Ethics Committee on Non-Human Biotechnology (and I pray to the high heavens we have no such federal committee here!) cannot decide why the act is morally condemnable, then it’s not.

Under this interpretation of the rules, PETA will change its name to PETPA, and demonstrators will be splashing fake blood on customers at flower shops, for what right do we mere humans have to use plants for anything beyond mere survival? Trimming hedges? Forget it!

This is the expansion of secularism, from the shocking idea a few years ago that animals should have the same rights as people to today, when humans are advocating that they’re no better than plants. No wonder they can’t fight wars anymore!

It’s particularly bad in Europe, where participation in Judeo-Christian religions has dropped off to the point where American Christian missionaries now see the continent as a priority area for missions. Without the anchor of God and a belief that there is divinity in our creation, anything goes, proving C.S. Lewis right. If a continent believes in nothing, it will believe anything.

hat-tip: Jim

Every once in a while you read a line in a news story, presented straightforwardly, cool, and oh, so reportorially, and you just know the reporter was slapping his knees and laughing out loud as he typed it.

Here’s one such line:

There was no immediate comment from rebels to the PETA’s letter.

Here’s what leads up to it:

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) - An international animal rights group called on Sri Lanka’s separatist Tamil Tigers to “leave animals out” of the armed conflict, two weeks after a grenade attack blamed on rebels at the island’s main zoo.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, or PETA, said in a letter dated Feb. 15 to Velupillai Prabhakaran, the reclusive rebel leader, that “the explosive device that was set off near the zoo’s bird enclosures terrified many animals at the zoo.”

PETA president Ingrid E. Newkirk pleaded with the rebel leader “to leave animals out of this conflict,” the letter said.

Newkirk added that the group has been inundated by messages from people saddened by the attack.

Drum roll, please …

There was no immediate comment from rebels to the PETA’s letter.

Note that no birds were even killed in the Tamil Tiger attack; they just had their feathers ruffled. Yet the animal rights wing of the Lefty insane asylum — which from the billboard appears to view terrorism as a big hoot — is a-tizzy with outrage. Of course, they weren’t particularly worried about dead people, just bothered birds.

PETA fans will remember that this is hardly the group’s most egregious animals-over-people debacle. That came when in their protest to al-Aqsa TV — the station that brought us Farfur, a character who resembled Mickey Mouse and advocated Palestinian attacks against Israelis until his poor little electrons were beaten to death by an actor depicted as an Israeli.

PETA got mad at the station because an actor verbally harassed some animals at a zoo as part of a show that was teaching children not to be cruel to animals! As I wrote at the time:

Apparently, PETA isn’t antisemitic; if it were, and it didn’t consider Jews to be fully human, it would rally for their protection. But thinking Jews mere humans, PETA finds itself admonishing the Palestinians for taunting some animals, but not admonishing them for blowing up buses filled with school kids.

Hat-tip: Jim

This just in from the “whites have deer hunting, blacks have dog fights” school of black racism*:

PHOENIX (Reuters) - Maricopa County Sheriff’s deputies removed 12 distressed pit bulls from the Phoenix area home of rapper-turned-actor DMX in a raid that also found a number of firearms, police said on Friday.

Sheriffs’ office spokesman Capt. Paul Chagolla said DMX, whose real name is Earl Simmons, 36, was not at home during the raid.

“We served an initial search warrant for animal neglect, and 12 pit bulls were removed,” Chagolla told Reuters by telephone.

DMX is not a quick learner. In 2002 he pled guilty in New Jersey to criminal neglect of 13 pit bulls, leading to a sentence of producing an apparently not too heartfelt public service announcement denouncing animal cruelty.

PR tip to dumb celebrities: If you suddenly see a celebrity being ravaged by the media for doing something you also do, best take immediate action, since the media love nothing more than a trend. This trend: Stupid celebrities who abuse dogs.

* Here’s the Today Show transcript for anyone who was passed out on crack in a van and missed it:

LAUER: Dennis Courtland Hayes is the interim president and CEO of the national chapter of the NAACP. Ingrid Newkirk is the president and co-founder of the animal rights group PETA.

Good morning to both of you.

Ms. INGRID NEWKIRK (President and Co-Founder, PETA): Good morning.

Mr. DENNIS COURTLAND HAYES (Interim President and CEO, NAACP): Good morning, Matt.

LAUER: Mr. Hayes, let me start with you. When we heard the comments, raised some eyebrows. The head of the NAACP in Atlanta saying that he just wants Michael Vick to be treated fairly, suggesting he has not been treated fairly thus far. Do you think Michael Vick has gotten a fair shake? And do you think there’s been a racial element to his treatment so far?

Mr. HAYES: Well, let me say, Matt, that the NACP***(as spoken)***, its national board of directions, its national office, is not taking an official position on the Mike Vick matter. We’re made of up of tens of thousands of members, over 2,000 affiliate units across the country, including Europe and Jam–and Japan. And they often speak to issues that are substantiative, local in nature. And…

LAUER: Well, let’s take Mr. White out of it for a second then, and just personally, do you think that Michael Vick has gotten a fair shake so far, even before he pleads guilty on Monday?

Mr. HAYES: Let me be clear, the NACP***(as spoken)***does not condone dogfighting. This is a situation involving Mike Vick. I understand he has admitted wrongdoing. Michael Vick is not a victim in this situation. He was in control of his actions and he’s not a victim.

LAUER: And would you be of the opinion, Mr. Hayes, that if Michael Vick were a white quarterback, star athlete, a Peyton Manning, that we would see the same amount of attention and the same amount of negative comments and the same amount of protests from people like PETA? And we’ll talk to Ingrid in a second.

Mr. HAYES: Well, that’s speculative. What we have to understand is the backdrop. We have to understand that what we’re hearing expressed by some African-Americans is their anger and hurt, distrust in a criminal justice system that they feel treats them like animals. No dog deserves to be mistreated. And blacks and Hispanics don’t deserve to represent a majority of our prison population in this country while blacks and Hispanics represent only one-third of the population.

LAUER: Ingrid, let me–let me, again, specifically talk to you about the dogfighting aspect of this. We’ve heard some people say that this is a sport, albeit behind closed doors. Stephon Marbury, as you just heard, compared it to deer hunting and said he doesn’t know that it’s any worse. How does–I think I know, but how do you come down on that?

Ms. NEWKIRK: Well, of course, the majority of Americans have spoken out very clearly. And we all know that it’s illegal to be cruel to animals in any state in the union. PETA, of course, opposes deer hunting. Only 7 percent of the US population goes deer hunting. But you don’t dowse deer in water and then electrocute them and beat them to death and slam them into the ground and you don’t build pits in your backyard for deer to fight. So, if somebody is so mad as to say that there’s an absolute comparison, they’re wrong. They’re both cruel sports or can be if you’re not a good shot…

LAUER: Well, let me ask…

Ms. NEWKIRK: …with deer hunting. But dogfighting is a world unto itself. It is bloods–blood and guts.

Take note: This is the first time in recorded history that Newkirk has been the least bit fresh and witty in one of her rants. That “… or can be if you’re not a good shot” was pretty good.

Gaza-based Hamas TV, al-Aqsa — the same station that brought us a character, Farfur, who resembled Mickey Mouse and advocated Palestinian attacks against Israelis until he was “beaten to death” by an actor depicted as an Israeli — has caught the wrath of PETA.

No, PETA isn’t the least bit concerned that al-Aqsa is actively teaching youngsters to kill Jews. They’ve got their undies in a knot over an al-Aqsa segment that just went too far in teaching kiddies not to be cruel to animals. Reuters:

“It’s shocking and sickening,” said Martin Mersereau, manager of the domestic animal abuse division of U.S.-based People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA).

Speaking to Reuters by telephone, he said PETA was drafting a letter of protest to the Gaza-based al-Aqsa television station, which aired the show — aimed at teaching children not to abuse animals — last week.

A segment of the program was posted on the YouTube video-sharing Web site after being recorded and translated by pro-Israeli group Palestinian Media Watch. …

The YouTube clip shows an actor dressed as a bee mistreating a cat and lions at Gaza Zoo. In the studio, he is reprimanded by the program’s host, who cautions children against mimicking the bee’s “terrible” behavior.

“Any lessons meant to be contained in this segment are almost certainly lost on most children, who are more likely to imitate people they see treating animals cruelly rather than understand this behavior is wrong,” Mersereau said.

If Mersereau can see this, he can certainly see that any child watching the Farfur clip or any of the other violent antisemitic propaganda al-Aqsa airs would be more likely to imitate the people they see espousing the killing of Jews rather than to understand that this behavior is wrong.

Apparently, PETA isn’t antisemitic; if it were, and it didn’t consider Jews to be fully human, it would rally for their protection. But thinking Jews mere humans, PETA finds itself admonishing the Palestinians for taunting some animals, but not admonishing them for blowing up buses filled with school kids.

Welcome to the wonderful world of secular relativism.

Hat-tip: Commenter Robert

As PETA protesters gather around Michael Vick’s partner in the Bad Newz Kennels, thought I’d just pose a simple question:

But that’s not worth PETA’s time.

hat-tip: Jim