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Are you talking about Mary Beth Sweetland? She isn't dependent on animal-derived insulin; Sweetland uses Humulin, a synthetic human insulin substitute.

Not anymore, it seems. She now uses a totally synthetic form of insulin called Humulin. http://www.goveg.com/diabetes_controlled.asp

Facts, they are stubborn things...

People unfamiliar with farming underestimate the degree to which the comfort of animals is taken into account.

All of the investigative reporting on factory farming in the last several years would indicate the exact opposite of this assertion. The comfort of the animals in farms across the United States is dead-last in priority, behind profit, common sense and even the humanity of those involved.

Some dairies play music all day because they've found it has a calming effect and increases production.

Like anything, it's all about money.

Where are all these dairy farms in which they play music for the cows? Do the cows spontaneously break into dance, too?

Is a visit to the dentist really that much better because they pipe in muzak during the root canal procedure? Or can we agree it's still pretty freaking uncomfortable? Now imagine getting a root canal every day of your life, for a couple of years, until the last day, in which the dentist shows up with a blade. This may sound a little extreme, but it's probably not actually all that far off from the average factory farm animal's perspective and experience.

Bottom line, factory farming is still cruel, with or without the soundtrack.

>>>You should really check this movie out - Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Prices

You should really check this movie out - PETA: The High Cost of Meat Eating - http://www.goveg.com/factoryFarming.asp

POINT-

Anybody can string together a bunch of videos, and make things look bad via propanda like these videos, but overall 99.9% of animals and walmart/chinese workers are treated humanly.

[sarcasm]I'm sure there are plenty of inspectors to enforce that law as well.[/sarcasm]

Mad cow disease, just so you understand it, is prion based. It does not just randomly happen. It is impossible for the brain to just make up prions. It must first come in contact with them by consumption or injection. Considering the fact that no one goes around injecting the bovine population with syringes filled with prions we must conclude a cow get's them by ingestion. That would mean that a "mad cow" infected animal got that why be eating the brain or spinal tissue of another MAMMAL.

http://www.citizen.org/pressroom/release.cfm?ID=1629

http://www.organicconsumers.org/madcow/silence51104.cfm

http://www.goveg.com/ABD_madcow.asp

http://www.goveg.com/feat/foie/

What a despicable thing to do to an animal just to make it tastier to eat.

First of all, it's probably a dog on your feet, not a cow.

Secondly, cows actually are quite intelligent as far as animals go, right below the pig (which is as intelligent as a human 4-year-old), more than the dog and they do have feelings-- if they are hurt by someone (cow or person), they remember it and even can hold a "grudge." http://www.goveg.com/f-hiddenlivescows_knowhow.asp

Most leather comes from India and China. China has no animal cruelty laws on any level and slaughters dogs and cats for their fur on a routine basis. Then, they use the skins for leather. Many of them are skinned alive because it's cheaper. "Hundreds of thousands of dog and cat skins are traded in Europe each year; it's estimated that 2 million dogs and cats are killed in China each year in order to meet this demand." [http://www.peta.org.uk/feat/feat-china.asp]

There's no question that all these animals feel pain when, for example, their throats are slit while they're still alive, they're bludgeoned to death, or in the case of the poor turtle, slowly hacked away for steak by customers until they bleed to death.

When you purchase something made of leather, you're supporting all this.

How can cloned animals be anymore ethical than non-cloned? They are still born (no labs here after conception), raised in a factory in awfull conditions and slaughted.

http://www.goveg.com/f-top10cows.asp (View some of the vids)

I think 90% of you believe this steak will be raise in the test tube... RTFM!!!!

Has anyone stopped to think of the energy that is being used to evetually create that manure? More than 70 percent of the grain and cereals that we grow in this country are fed to farmed animals http://www.goveg.com/environment-wastedResources-f ood.asp. The energy required to grow and harvest all that grain fed to the cattle has to be greater than whatever you could get from methane.

Amazing, indeed. Also sounds very healthy.

I agree with most of your post except for your belief that non human forms of life lack the "divine spark" of humans, or as you have said, lack the ability to deny one's impulses, etc. I think as time goes on, more rigorous scientific study will prove that animals possess many of these characteristics that were previously applied to humans only. i wait for the day that scientific equipment is sensitive enough to measure someone's chi, q, vital life spark, or "divine spark". EEG's, brainwaves, or pulse are currently a brute force and gross way of oversimplifying that picture. That day might be a ways off. Probably about the time that quantum physics theory becomes more than a theory. until then, we only have compelling stories such as these, such as this story explaining that chickens practice self control http://www.goveg.com/f-hiddenliveschickens.asp or that cockroaches colllobarate, previously reported here on slashdot http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/04/0 4/1532235&from=rss

I wish that I were trolling.

From the article: "DeLaval was started in 1883 by Swedish inventor Gustaf de Laval. It sells a variety of dairy supply and "cow comfort" products aimed at increasing dairy yields." The comfort of the cow is not the primary motivation for using this product. You can't deny that milk cows are bred for and used inhumanely as slaves.

From goveg.com: "The 9 million cows living on dairy farms in the United States spend most of their lives in large sheds or on feces-caked mud lots, where disease is rampant. Cows raised for their milk are repeatedly impregnated. Their babies are taken away so that humans can drink the milk intended for the calves. When their exhausted bodies can no longer provide enough milk, they are sent to slaughter and ground up for hamburgers."

Would you allow your own cat or dog to be treated in the same fashion as animals used in factory farming?

Can anyone still be vegetarian if the meat is synthetic? The ethical and environmental reasons go straight out the window if it grows on trees or in a steel box.

One more reason to stop eating meat

And are funded by Tyson Foods (the largest chicken processor) and the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, among others.

PeTA's tactics are... get ready for this shocker... ad campaigns. If there were real "terrorist" connections (especially with some of these "terrorists" quoted by name, at public gatherings), in this post-911 world, don't you think these people would've been nabbed?

PeTA most likely didn't "go after" these squirrel monitors, they get contacted for quotes ALL THE TIME, because they are the largest animal rights group in the world. The main focus is on factory farming, see Meet Your Meat and The Meatrix.

As for "absurd zealotry", that could easily be applied to those who defend the killing of 10 billion land animals every year in the U.S., and 15 billion acquatic ones.

Anyway, if you don't get it now, you will eventually, when we finally run out of resources and can't keep pumping 80% of the food and fresh water into inefficient middlemen consumers. Then you'll be eating veggie burgers by necessity.

Blah, Tofu fried chicken, Veg pizza and Soy BBQ ribs! Go Veg!