Will the real Ingrid Newkirk please stand up...

i see their means (punishing everyone to target the few, taking away people's rights) as abhorent [...] But you are entitled to your opinion, and if you start with different premises, perhaps it is rational. Just don't expect it to be a popular opinion here.

Amstaffer, if Animal Rights groups does not mean that they think animals have rights, what does it mean, and what are you saying they stand for, if not that animals have rights?

I'm not sure what they are doing with fur now. I have always admired their "I'd rather go naked than wear fur" campaign. Not the paint throwing or the graphic pictures, but the naked parades and racy photos, paired with genuine statistics on the cruel conditions under which fur animals were raised. It did some good. It was clever, provocative, and effective.

Alas, it was paired with vandalism, intimidation and gory shock tactics.

You and I must be watching different shows. I have never saw an anti drug/alcohol ad that was derived just to make me squeamish. I have seen them that point out why these things are bad, unhealthy, and what the risks are, but graphic and disturbing? Hardly.

I can see the value in punishing the good (good pet owners) to stop animal suffering at the hands of the bad (bad pet owners).

all the reading you have done...and you have not read about PeTA killing thousands of animals yearly?

Yeah, maybe. Here, anyway, they were showing commercials with dead bodies from alcohol related car accidents. And commercials of people who use meth cutting themselves, snorting their drugs. And of course cigarette packages have been showing blood clotted brains and rotten lungs and dying babies for ages now. I find those kind of graphic and disturbing.

An official report from People for The Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) shows that the animal rights group put to death more than 97 percent of the dogs, cats, and other pets it took in for adoption in 2006. During that year, the well-known animal rights group managed to find adoptive homes for just 12 pets. The non-profit Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF) is calling on PETA to either end its hypocritical angel-of-death program, or stop its senseless condemnation of Americans who believe it's perfectly ethical to use animals for food, clothing, and critical medical research.

Not counting animals PETA held only temporarily in its spay-neuter program, the organization took in 3,061 "companion animals" in 2006, of which it killed 2,981. According to Virginia's Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (VDACS), the average euthanasia rate for humane societies in the state was just 34.7 percent in 2006. PETA killed 97.4 percent of the animals it took in. The organization filed its 2006 report this month, nine months after the VDACS deadline of March 31, 2007.

"Pet lovers should be outraged," said CCF Director of Research David Martosko. "There are thousands of worthwhile animal shelters that deserve Americans' support. PETA is not one of them."

In courtroom testimony last year, a PETA manager acknowledged that her organization maintains a large walk-in freezer for storing dead animals, and that PETA contracts with a Virginia cremation service to dispose of the bodies. In that trial, two PETA employees were convicted of dumping dead animals in a rural North Carolina trash dumpster.

In Southampton County, Virginia, another PETA employee currently faces criminal charges in a dog-napping case. Andrea Florence Benoit Harris was arrested in late 2006 for allegedly abducting a hunting dog and attempting to transport it to PETA's Norfolk headquarters.

"PETA raised over $30 million last year," Martosko added, "and it's using that money to kill the only flesh-and-blood animals its employees actually see. The scale of PETA's hypocrisy is simply staggering."

So you. . . admire. . . them objectifying womens' bodies to promote their own agenda?

they have a 90% kill rate at their facility Domestika...they have taken animals from shelters where they were FOR ADOPTION, falsely telling the shelters the animals will be homed,...euth'd (by unauthorized persons with who knows what kind of training as to minimizing suffering to the animal) in the back of a van and stuffed the bodies in dumpsters...what part of animal rights, is that?

If you can point me in the diection of some objective articles about this (ie. not written by deathtopeta.com) I'd really like to read them.

No, I admire the women who were willing to overcome their shame and proudly parade naked through the streets of New York to demonstrate their beliefs. I admire using clever, shocking (though not gory), advertising to make a point. I got a kick, even at the age i was when that campaign started, out of the gibbering idiotcy produced by the press, and the fur industry, and the politicians, in the face of a protest defined by beautiful naked women. And it DID make the fur industry more humane. Not as humane as I'd like (and I am not innately opposed to fur) but it definately had an effect. Good. That time, if you just look at that part of the campaign, they used non-violent methods to help animals AND make the world a more interesting place while they were at it. Unfortunately, they didn't stop there.

But that depends on one's viewpoint, with the objectifying women. Having done my bit of women's studies in college, I see their arguement about objectification . . . but I also disagree with them that nudity is somehow degrading, or that women should be prevented from displaying their nudity, or that objectification is innately, inheriently BAD under all circumstances. (Perhaps it is bad, but it is also inevitable, and a woman in a burka is as objectified as a nude one, perhaps more so). But that is a whole other philsophical discussion that we should have on another thread.

Edit: In the US, Hounds, there are no graphic pictures on cigarette packs, but there are in some other countries. Doesn't work any better than the words, I'm told.

Edit: Wait, that wasn't as hard to find as I thought.

Here's the VA gov: http://www.virginia.gov/vdacs_ar/cg...acility&form=fac_select&fac_num=157&year=2007

Here's a newsweek article: http://www.newsweek.com/id/134549/output/print

The San Francisco Chronicle: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/06/23/EDG11DC9BK1.DTL

and the American Veterinary Medicine Association: http://www.avma.org/onlnews/javma/dec05/051201e.asp

Well, its a matter of public record in VA. I don't have time to find you a citation, but its in their filings with the government. And the NC story made the national news.

I'd really like to avoid being burned at the stake at a forum I really, really enjoy being a part of, but I'm going to comment on those articles anyway!

I'm going to play devil's advocate and make just two points.

One, PETA's employees SHOULD represent the philosophy the organization stands for. However, there are always some misguided and even corrupt individuals in every organization. I think it would be a shame to use two peoples' very poor actions to form an opinion of an entire organization. Occasionally you hear about a cop who abuses their authority and is disciplined. It's sad. It happens. It doesn't make you think that the entire philosophy of law enforcement is corrupt. Dumping euthanized animals in a dumpster is wrong. Period. PETA as an organization doesn't advocate dumping animals in dumpsters.

Two, animal shelters kill healthy animals on a regular basis, unfortunately (though not here, thank god). They run out of room and adoptable animals are euthanized. I find it kind of hard to see this "oh my god, PETA killed 17,000 animals!" as very shocking or enlightening. They run out of room like everyone else and are forced to euthanize animals. They aren't even a shelter, truly. That's not their purpose.

So all the shock media about them "hiding" dead bodies in a walk in freezer... I don't understand why it's shocking. Of course they have to euthanize animals (both animals they're in possession of and animals they euthanize for other shelters) and...of course they have to store them somewhere. It's not as sinister as it's made out to be. If you look at the first link, in fact, you'll see that of all the animals that PETA took possession of last year three times as many were returned to their owner as were euthanized. They act more as a boarding facility than a death camp, as has been reported.

I appreciate the info. It was an interesting read. And I'm more than happy to continue the discussion, as long as it stays objective and free from personal attacks.

One, PETA, the organization, did not disclaim their actions. In fact, they paid for their defense.

If they have that little room, they shouldn't be taking in those animals [...].

Four, hiding the bodies. If you are planning to euthanize large numbers of animals, then you should have a way to dispose of the bodies. If you are warehousing them, then your operation has serious problems.

Domestika, no one's going to burn you at the stake... TMK the discussion has been civil?

And don't worry, if anyone tries it, I'll give you a bag of marshmallows.