Neuroscientist Halts Research to Stop Extremists

FleaPlus writes "UCLA neuroscience professor Dario Ringach, known for his contributions to our understanding of how the visual system processes information, has been forced to give up his experiments by the actions of animal-rights extremists. Although he and his family had endured harassment and vandalization by animal-rights activists for years, Ringach reconsidered after extremists tried to firebomb a colleague's home and accidentally left their Molotov cocktail on an elderly neighbor's doorstep. Ringach sent an email to animal activist groups saying, 'You win... please don't bother my family anymore.'"

Comments

With the war on terrorism...

[Sinryc]

Why can't get get rid of our home grown ones?

Re:With the war on terrorism...

[aunticrist]

No offense, but if you are using terror tactics to effect how people behave, you are a "terrorist". Let's not mince words and make excuses for these people.

Re:With the war on terrorism...

[Anonymous Coward]

Nothing you listed fits the definition of Terrorism, but nice try:

Sharpshooters targetting officers - um, that's military forces killing other military forces. That even meets Geneva rules (though those were way in the future).

Boston Tea Party - did they kill anyone? Were they intending to spread terror, or just make a big mess in protest? This was a lot closer to the Million Man March than terrorism.

Mobs killing (suspected) loyalists (and vice versa) - This is a sizable fraction of the populace attacking a different, sizable fraction of the populace. Not a small group spreading terror by random death & destruction. I wouldn't call the race riots terrorism, and neither is this.

Re:With the war on terrorism...

[FleaPlus]

The interesting thing is that ALF, etc have never actually hurt anybody (at least there are no police records indicating they have)

The thing is, the Animal Liberation Front isn't really a "proper" organization. Rather, just about anybody who engages in some sort of "direct action" that doesn't involve violence can claim that it was done by the ALF. Although the ALF has a system of covert cells which engages in illicit activity, you don't necessarily be part of such a cell to do something and claim it in the name of the ALF. On a similar note, the ALF tends to disclaim association with any activity which happens to be violent.

That said, some people have been physically hurt by extremists who at least tried to claim they were associated with the ALF. From Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_Liberation_Fro nt

In 1999, British documentary-filmmaker Graham Hall, himself an animal-rights activist, told the police and the Mail on Sunday [9] that he was kidnapped and branded with the letters "ALF" across his back after filming ALF activists, including Robin Webb, "boasting about bomb making and choosing sites for violent attacks." [10] His film was shown on Channel 4 in the UK during the 1998 hunger strike of Barry Horne. Hall said he was taken by several masked men, one of whose voices he said he recognized from a previous gathering of activists, to an unknown house, then was tied to a chair for several hours and branded.

No direct action that has involved violence may be claimed on behalf of the ALF, although ALF spokespersons won't condemn the use of violence by people who have previously acted in the name of the ALF. When David Blenkinsop and two others assaulted HLS director Brian Cass outside his home with pick-axe handles, ALF founder Ronnie Lee said: "He has got off lightly. I have no sympathy for him," [17] and Robin Webb said: "The Animal Liberation Front has always had a policy of not harming life, but while it would not condone what took place, it understands the anger and frustration that leads people to take this kind of action."

Re:With the war on terrorism...

[hey!]

With the war on terrorism... why can't get get rid of our home grown ones?

Because a "War on Terrorism" is, practically by definition, unable to do anything about terrorism.

This is so because terrorist organizations are not military ones. They neither operate according to the laws of war, nor do they pursue the normal strategic objectives of war, nor do they use the typical means of war. The only thing that they have in common with a military organization is that they employ violence; the resemblence to a military organization ends there.

I know "War on Terrorism" is only an analogy, but it is a very poor one. It's not that the struggle against terrorism has no parallels with war; but it parallels war only to the degree terrorism parallels warfare. Taking this loose analogy too seriously and literally means you end up fighting in the wrong places with the wrong equipment and the wrong strategy. It's like declaring you want to beat the Yankees, then showing up at the Meadowlands in your football gear. Chances are you're going to have a football game against the Jets instead of a baseball game against the Yankees.

Saying the struggle against terrorism is not warfare is not tantamount to dismissing its importance. If you think that way, the only way society could achieve anything is by warfare. "War" is the wrong word.

What you need is a word that subsumes struggle on many levels, at times manifesting as battle in the military sense, but even more often as purposeful social reorganization. A word that implies a heightened vigilance on the part of individuals, and an individual share in the responsiblity for victory. You need a word that indicates a shared goal that is held in high importance by every level of society, and which therefore affects both great policy and mundane daily decisions. "War" carries the emotional and moral gravity of the situation, but it implies excessively narrow tactics.

English, does not have an adequate word for this kind of struggle, but ironically Arabic does: jihad.

Re:With the war on terrorism...

[LionKimbro]

I disagree: Terrorists are (roughly) people who have given up all hope with "the system," and are taking matters into their own hands.

For example, the American Revolutionaries would probably be called "terrorists" today.

Proclaiming "Criminal Insanity" is a means whereby you objectify somebody else, and make them fit for murder: That is, you have justified to yourself, by calling the person a terrorist, their murder.

Notice how you appeal to "normal people." And "perverted teachings." You're not even trying to establish foundational basis; You're appealing entirely to normalicy.

But do you not think that there is ever a time when normalicy must be challenged?

And perhaps even in highly illegal and plausibly even unethical ways?

Is there nothing you would not fight for? Nothing?

Dude, if you want to oppose these people, fine. But use some real reasoning; Not just some flim-flam appeal to simple majority: "There are more of us, therefor we are right."

Re:With the war on terrorism...

[NoTheory]

Wow, what a stupidly unqualified statement. "Often" where? Are Muslims often terrorists in Ireland? How about in Peru? What about Sri Lanka? Or Nepal? Is the KKK often a muslim terrorist group?

Get real. Terrorists come out of all ethnicities and creeds. Terrorism relies on a fossilization of the mind, and a sociopathic dissociation from other people. It's got nothing inherent to do with Islam. And it's certainly stupid to say that terrorists are "often" muslims, as opposed to "often" being anything else.

Re:With the war on terrorism...

[tbo]

This is so because terrorist organizations are not military ones. They neither operate according to the laws of war, nor do they pursue the normal strategic objectives of war, nor do they use the typical means of war. The only thing that they have in common with a military organization is that they employ violence; the resemblence to a military organization ends there.

Hezbollah, recognized by many Western nations as a terrorist organization, has quite a lot in common with more conventional military organizations. It has a chain of command, "civilian" oversight of its military wing (i.e. Nasrallah and the Hezbollah members of Lebanon's parliament), substantial military training, and the arms necessary to hold its own when going up against a powerful Western military (I'm thinking in particular of the advanced anti-tank missiles Hezbollah has). Israel has probably failed to do so, but it seems likely it is possible to severely wound Hezbollah with conventional "war". (Whether that's the best course of action is a different matter.) If we're talking about Hezbollah, "war" is an apt word; the same held true for Al Qaeda when they had control of Afghanistan.

I know "War on Terrorism" is only an analogy, but it is a very poor one. It's not that the struggle against terrorism has no parallels with war; but it parallels war only to the degree terrorism parallels warfare. Taking this loose analogy too seriously and literally means you end up fighting in the wrong places with the wrong equipment and the wrong strategy. It's like declaring you want to beat the Yankees, then showing up at the Meadowlands in your football gear. Chances are you're going to have a football game against the Jets instead of a baseball game against the Yankees.

I think you're mostly right, but this is largely about PR and semantics. "War on Terror" is shorthand for "Military action against some who support Islamist terror, and the struggle to prevent terrorism through a broad spectrum of means". The latter just doesn't have the same ring to it, is all.

English, does not have an adequate word for this kind of struggle, but ironically Arabic does: jihad.

"War" does seem to be getting tired. Perhaps "The Jihad against Jihad". But then, English does have an equivalent word: "Crusade". Once things get to the point where names can't make it any worse, why not have some fun? One side can be "The Crusade against Jihad", while the other side is "Jihad against the Infidel Crusaders". It reminds me of the Judean People's Front and People's Front of Judea from Monty Python's Life of Brian, which is surely a good starting point for understanding the Middle East.

Re:With the war on terrorism...

[Ichoran]

If you believe that we have a strong moral duty to protect animals and prevent their suffering, isn't your first priority to stop using animals for food? Many of the animals we eat are raised and killed in deplorable conditions; even the best facilities are unlikely to meet minimum standards for the ethical treatment of animals for scientific research. And with research, we gain something permanent: knowledge about how living systems work, which can be applied to produce a higher quality of life for humans (and for animals, should we want to--veterinary science, for example, has benefitted substantially from all the research we've done in the biological sciences and medicine!). With food animals, we just get food, which we then eat, and then it's gone.

(Annoyingly enough, we've evolved to be omnivores and have to be especially careful with our diet if we neglect any part of a normal omnivorous diet.)

So that leaves us with a question: why do groups like PETA and ALF focus their attention on research when they haven't got nearly enough manpower to make an impact on the worst abuses in the food industry, much less cover everything down to the relatively minor cases of animals used for vision research?

I can think of four possibilities.

(1) They're ignorant. Despite it being their mission to treat animals ethically, and despite the discomfort of, say, chicken-rearing warehouses being well documented, they don't realize how much suffering is being caused by that in comparison to all research put together. Since this supposedly what they care about, and the information is available, it has to be willful ignorance.

(2) They're luddites. Despite the amazing advances in health and medicine coming from research, and the extraordinarly broad evidence that animal research is essential in narrowing down ideas for treatments to those which are actually promising to humans, they distrust research and science. Perhaps they actively long for a return to a hunter-gatherer lifestyle, where we were plagued by a host of pathogens and had few methods to alleviate pain and suffering. Or perhaps they notice that our advanced technology has done a lot of damage to the planet, and are too lazy to figure out how technology should be used well; it's much easier just to think it should all go.

(3) They're cowards. They know much worse abuses exist, but they're afraid of powerful corporate interests, and by harassing researchers who are relatively isolated and poor compared to multinational food conglomerates, they can make themselves feel like they're doing something without having to risk the consequences that might accompany taking on the real problem.

(4) They long for a polarizing wedge issue that no longer exists. Animal testing used to be much less humane than it is now; but after the initial animal rights movement pointed that out, and research indicated that our self-interested assumptions that animals didn't feel pain were not borne out by evidence, the protocols have been modified to greatly reduce any suffering. That doesn't leave much room to be an activist; where's the fun in that? So, even though the battle has been won, perhaps some people want to keep fighting it.

None of these hypotheses is particularly flattering, and most of them boil down to animal rights activists being ignorant, hypocritical, or both.

And some of the moral protests are ill-informed. Suppose you're developing a new cosmetic product to be used on the face. Anything that people might put on their face could get in their eyes. What do you do? (By extension: is the claim that all cosmetics are bad and shouldn't be used? That we should blind people in order to test cosmetics? Seriously--what is the proposal here?)

Re:With the war on terrorism...

[iluvcapra]

Sharpshooters targetting officers - um, that's military forces killing other military forces. That even meets Geneva rules (though those were way in the future).

The behavior of the patriots was thoroughly inconsistent with the established contemporary customs of war. And they generally didn't wear uniforms either, and they tended to hide their weapons and fighters amongst the civilian population.

Boston Tea Party - did they kill anyone? Were they intending to spread terror, or just make a big mess in protest? This was a lot closer to the Million Man March than terrorism.

The boston tea party destroyed commercial assets, in order to have a political effect, which by the present US government's definition, is in fact terrorism. Their intention is irrelevant; the act itself could be construed as subversive to the government, particularly since it stood to loose enormous tax revenue from the tea that was dumped.

If someone tried to start the Million Man (really 300,000 man) March today, they'd never get the permission to march that many observant Muslims in the capitol, and if they tried to do so without permit, they would certainly, under the current regime, be liable for arrest as a terrorist (as opposed to being arrested for merely being disorderly).

Mobs killing (suspected) loyalists (and vice versa) - This is a sizable fraction of the populace attacking a different, sizable fraction of the populace. Not a small group spreading terror by random death & destruction. I wouldn't call the race riots terrorism, and neither is this.

So sed -e 's/Sunni/Tory/' | sed -e 's/Iraq/Colonies/'. Maybe Iraq's off to a good start, after all.

"animal" rights?

[macadamia_harold]

Although he and his family had endured harassment and vandalization by animal-rights activists for years, Ringach reconsidered after extremists tried to firebomb a colleague's home and accidentally left their Molotov cocktail on an elderly neighbor's doorstep.

I don't get it. Aren't humans "animals", too?

Re:"animal" rights?

[Feyr]

Four legs good! Two legs bad!

Re:"animal" rights?

[Snarfangel]

Four legs good! Two legs bad!

Third leg popular!

Re:"animal" rights?

[eh2o]

I happen to work in an academic department where some of the faculty conduct animal research. For these people, you will notice such details as their name is not posted anywhere in the hallways and there are no directions to their office or lab anywhere. And believe me, there is nothing particularly interesting or scandalous about what they do. The university also has oversight bodies and there are lots of strict regulations they have to comply with (a few decades ago the situation was much more lax). However, the animal rights people do not really care what the research is for or the details of how it is conducted. They harrass people mostly based on the type of animal that they use for experimentation. For example it used to be that cats were very popular lab animal, but that practice has since ceased completely because of how much trouble it caused with activists. Currently monkeys are the most controversial animal. One of the tactics for getting out of the way of the animal people is to use obscure animals that people are not very familiar with, for example ferrets, because they just don't invoke the same emotional response (regardless of how intelligent they may be).

Re:"animal" rights?

[FleaPlus]

That's a question only UCLA and the researchers can really answer, by providing us with the information about what the research was. They refuse to do so.

In all likelihood, it's because they don't want to give activists some convenient soundbite they can distort.

In any case dude, it's not like Ringach's research is some big secret. As I've mentioned elsewhere in this thread, all you need to do is a Google Scholar search. Ringach's experiments are pretty much standard visual electrophysiology, where you record from neurons in visual cortex while you present stimuli to an animal. It's the same basic technique which Hubel and Wiesel got the 1981 Nobel Prize.

What makes Ringach's research unique is (was?) the sorts of images he presented to the animals, and some clever data analysis.

Re:"animal" rights?

[Anonymous Coward]

The "Methods" section only says the methods are the same as in "Ringach DL, Hawken MJ, and Shapley R. Dynamics of orientation tuning in macaque primary visual cortex.", which I did not find on-line.
Nature generally requires an institutional subscription to read their papers (which I'll admit is pretty lame). Here's the methods section from the Ringach, Hawken, & Shapley (Nature, 1996) paper:

(It doesn't want to copy-paste, so I'm typing the text by hand. My apologies for any typos.)

Acute experiments were performed on adult Old-World monkeys (Macaca fascicularis). Animals were initially tranquilized with i.m. acepromazine (50 ug kg-1), anaesthetized with i.m. ketamine and maintained on i.v. opiod anaesthetic (sufentanil citrace, 6 ug kg-1 h-1). During recording, anaesthesia was continued with sufentanil (6 ug kg-1 h-1). During recording, anaesthesia was continued with sufentanil (6 ug kg-1 h-1) and paralysis induced with pancuronium bromide. Electrocardiogram and expired CO2 were continuously monitored and blood pressure was measured non-invasively at intervals of 5 min by a Hewlett-Packard Model 78354A patient monitor. Extracellular action potentials were recorded with glass-coated tungsten microelectrodes, exposed tips 5-15 um. Spikes were detected using a Bak (Maryland, USA) DDIS-I dual window discriminator and were time-stamped with an accuracy of 1 ms using a CED-1401 Plus (Cambridge, UK) data acquisition system. Strict criteria for single-unit recording included fixed shape of the action potential and the absence of spikes during the absolute refractory period. Small electrolytic lesions (2-3 uA for 2-3s, tip negative) were made along the length of each penetration. Details of the reconstruction of the penetrations and the assignment of cells to cortical layers can be found in ref. 30.

A Silicon Graphics Elan R4000 computer generated the stimuli in real time. The screen measured 34.3 cm wide by 27.4 cm high. The refresh rate of the monitor was 60 Hz. The mean luminance of the display was 56 cd m-2. The contrast of the gratings was 100% and their spatial frequency was optimal for each cell. The size of the stimulation patch was large compared to the receptive field of the cell; the side of the stimulus was between 6 and 10 times the spatial period of the optimal grating. The receptive field of the cell was centred in the middle of the stimulus. Therefore, both the classical receptive field of the cell and its surround were stimulated. Most cell responded with mean spike rates ranging between 2 and 40 spikes per second. A few cells with very high directional selectivity did not respond at all to the stimulus and could not be studied.

We ran stimulus sequences for 15 min (900 s or 54,000 frames). In a typical experiment we used an angular resolution of ~10^0. Thus, the set S usually contained 72 different images (18 orientations X 4 spatial phases). During the 15-min presentation each image appeared, on average, 750 times. If a typical cortical neuron fired ~5 spikes per second to the stoachastic stimulation sequence, we obtained a total of 4,500 spikes. We distribution these 4,500 spikes in only 18 orientation bins (because we average across spatial phases). Thus, for a uniform distribution, about 250 spikes are found in each bin. The large number of spikes and small number of orientation bins allowedc us to obtain smooth and accurate orientation probability distributions.

The circular variance v of a cell which has responses Rk at angles 0-180 is given by ... [math equation]. Circular variance is a measure of orientation bandwidth which is bounded between zero and one. Cells not tuned for orientation have a circular variance of one. Cells that are very sharply tuned have circular variance values close to zero.

For some additional context, here's the abstract: Orientation tuning of neurons is one of the chief emergent characteristics of the primary visual

Re:Morons

[Ph33r th3 g(O)at]

That would be too good. Better would be to use them for the experimentation that they deem unfit for animals. Everybody wins!

What I don't get

[Sycraft-fu]

Is why these groups are allowed to continue to exist. I'm sorry but I don't buy this crap of "We applaud people who do things like this and we don't stop members from doing it, but really it's not our fault that it happens!" Sorry, like with corporations, I think if there's consistent bad action by our members and if your policy encourages that, then you are liable, regardless of if it was "official" or not.

While you certainly can't be expected to control all the actions of everyone who belongs to your group, there's still a duty not to turn a blind eye on purpose, and then pat them on the back after the fact.

Activitists

[Quasar1999]

Bah... these are the real terrorists... You don't agree with what someone is doing, then sue them... that's the american way... and if that fails, then try and get a law passed to make it illegal... starting your own personal war based on your morals is no different than the actions of those the US is currently calling terrorists. But hey, this is in the country who's government doesn't believe in teaching evolution anymore...

Times like these I'm happy to live in a country where the worst thing activists do is slow down traffic, and hold marches.

Re:Activitists

[dfenstrate]

Time between when the story was posted by the editors and someone blames bush.... 19 minutes.

Is that a new record?

Terrorists.

[Grendel Drago]

Fucking terrorists. They're the same as abortion clinic bombers, using violence to induce fear to achieve their political goals.

And I want to say that he should have stood up to them, that if you give in like this, the terrorists win... but the guy's put up with years of harassment, and now violence against his coworkers, with a very real threat to his family and to people unlucky enough to live near him. So it's understandable why he's packing it in; under the same circumstances, I would have given up years earlier. But it still fucking sucks.

The most grating part of it is that I'll bet the assholes from UCLA Primate Freedom who posted his picture and contact info think they can wash their hands of the inevitable results of their propagandizing.

Re:Terrorists.

[devbiowonk]

Amid all of the chaos of today's world (our lovely wars in the middle east etc.), this is the most depressing story I have read all week. A scientist was forced out of a field that he has dedicated a significant portion of his life to by some self-important zealots(at least he has tenure already). I find it ironic that the people on the far left of the polictical spectrum perpetrating these acts are achieving the goals of the far right (halting the progress of science). Perhaps I am just biased because I have done animal research myself...

Re:Terrorists.

[theLOUDroom]

How is preventing people from torturing animals a political goal? It's a basic moral goal. If you're walking down the street and see someone beating a cat or dog would you not stop them?

Fuck you buddy. Quit being an apologist for these assholes.

Were not talking about direct action to stop the torture of an animal we're talking about firebombing someone's house.
Not firebombing houses, THAT's basic morals. These people are scumbags plain and simple. They have their excuses, just like every terrorist, but at the end of the day they are scum.

If you believe you are justfied in threatening the lives of those around you because you personally hold certain "morals" you have none at all. Your first obligation is to your fellow man. If you can't get that right, you are a piece of shit plain and simple.

Re:Terrorists.

[SirSlud]

Its an issue of due process. He had to go through paperwork and peer review to do his work. It was legal. Society accepted, or at least tolerated, the pain being inflicted for the mutual benifit of all. (Extra irony; in some-odd years, zoos may plausibly use his research to help monkeys who are born blind. We can already communicate quite well with monkeys via sign language, so as far as I'm concerned, his research is not for the exclusive benifit of humans.) Every social structure deals with this. I hate to bring up the tired cliche, but when animals kill animals of other species so they can propogate or feed, they don't discuss it and create laws about what is acceptable, or have insitutions that attempt to rehabilite people who violate those codes. (We can debate that, because of course there are similar social and communicative structures displayed by other species, but the point stands that we do employ those methods in order to determine what, as a group, we determine to be acceptable.)

If everyone got together and it was discussed on a panel of people who dedicate their lives to stopping medical research on animals, and those people got the A-OK from the proper law enforcement authorities to firebomb the mans house, then I'd be OK with that. Thats due process at work, and if thats what the consensus is after having hashed out the options and differing opinions, I'd light the damn thing myself.

As it stands, I see some people risking the lives of people completely uninvolved with animal research. I see people who are so passionate about what they believe in, they have more in common with fraud artists and murderers than they do humans and monkeys. If they don't trust scientists or engineers, or lawmakers or whoever to rationally come to compromises that enrich lives while attempting to minimize inevitable suffering, then they can move back to the jungle where they don't have to benifit from those who do make difficult decisions and sometimes cause arguably avoidable suffering in the name of science, technology, health, etc. I don't care if they're driving BMWs or riding bikes, using cosmetics or home-made soap, watching television or writing stuff down on parchment they make from their own fully sustainable forest and paper mill factory. Stop using technology if you are uncomfortable with having to cause some level of suffering. I'm not advocating technology as a solution to lifes problems, or ills of society; I'm saying they have a choice. Move to the hills if you're not interested in operating through the channel of the social contract. I respect their opinion, as I respect yours, but I give the kudos to the scientist because he operates in public as opposed to in secrecy.

crude explosive

[phlegmofdiscontent]

It's interesting to note that the LA Times article calls it a crude explosive (which could be anything from firecracker to pipe bomb) while the other article calls it a Molotov Cocktail (which IS crude, but more specific). All that aside, obviously these people (if they did it) are complete and utter morons. One does not light a Molotov Cocktail and place it on a porch. One lights a Molotov Cocktail and throws it through a window (or air vent on a Soviet tank, which was the device's original purpose). The glass container breaks, spraying flammable liquid all over the place which then ignites, burning the place down. THAT is how one firebombs a house correctly.

Re:Morons

[LGagnon]

You demand violence to stop violence that was meant to stop violence. You do realize your idea only helps the problem spiral, right?

Between Pavlov and Dr Moreau

[Gopal.V]

The question to ask is where do you stop ? . As much of a tree hugger I am, putting a bomb at somebody's doorstep is now way to react. In fact, I'd say these activists have terrorized a man out of his quest for knowledge.

Sure, I've gone and petitioned against trees being cut down. Indeed, we've even hugged a few and prevented their demise. But vigilante retribution was never the way to save animals. There have been transgressions on one side, but that doesn't justify the other side from commiting brutality.

Replacing cruelty to animals, with one towards mankind doesn't solve the problem - mainly because there is no Noble Savage unlike what Rousseau dreamed.

This is like terrorism with its own ecological brand (call it another religion if you want).

This is me, not being a hypocrite.

[Grendel Drago]

We complain when people who hold strong views don't censure their extremists. I would be a hypocrite if I didn't say this.

Violence isn't the answer. These people are destructive. These people are assholes. However, the answer is not to shoot them. They should be arrested, tried and, if found guilty, fined and/or imprisoned for their crimes.

Fantasies of "first against the wall, motherfuckers!" are briefly satisfying, but ultimately degrading to the person having the fantasy.

Everytime I read a story like this...

[Anonymous Coward]

...I am going to torture 25 monkeys to death. Just for fun. Not for science, just good old fashioned fun.

The cutest thing about animal rights activists

[Baldrson]

You know how cute animals are. Well animal rights activists are at their cutest when they loose invasive species from laboratories on the unsuspecting indigenous flora and fauna the way they did in the British Isles.

Not surprising

[Kohath]

Animals don't have rights. It's not that much of a leap from the fantasy that anmials have rights to the justification that it's OK to firebomb people to protect animals.

Reality never intercedes because it was left behind when the animal rights activists refused to complete the transition to adulthood and the realities and responsibilities that come with it. Some people just decide to live in a cartoon world.

When animals agree to a set of minimum behavioral norms that define a civil society, then they'll have rights. Until then, it's the law of the jungle that defines the lives and fortunes of animals.

Re:Devil's advocate

[remembertomorrow]

I wonder if monkey tastes good... watching those videos while hungry was probably not a good idea.

*heads to local zoo*

I'll show them

[osgeek]

I'm going hunting tomorrow morning. I don't care for what. I'll just take my twenty gauge and a couple of boxes of shells; go out into the woods near my house; and start the massacre.

And in the afternoon?

Fishing with dynamite, baby.

You animal rights terrorists may have won a round against the researcher, but I am a one-man animal sadist terrorist cell... and I've now been activated.

Boy, that's fascinating.

[Grendel Drago]

You're missing the point. Whether or not you agree with primate research, either you're against the use of violence to achieve your political ends, or you're enabling these terrorists.

Were the slave revolts through out history wrong? Should the former slaves not taken any kind of violent action towards their masters?

What a fascinating analogy. When macaque monkeys start firebombing houses, please notify me.

Re:Fascism by any other name is still fascism

[shudde]

And before anyone brings up abortion clinic bombers, you want to know why it isn't a problem? Because there are a lot of Christians like me who wouldn't hesitate to shoot those violent fucks if we caught them in the act. Why? Our religion teaches that preserving life is a duty of all Jews and Christians.

I don't even know where to start... do you religious people actually listen to what you say?

Go back to grade school.

[Grendel Drago]

Dissent? Dissent?!

If you can't tell the difference between:

• holding protests
• waging action through the courts
• firebombing someone's house, threatening their neighbors and their family

then I suggest you return to grade school and play one of these things is not like the fucking others until you're ready to join us at the grown-ups' table.

Comical Justice for the Extremists

[selex]

As was pointed out on Penn and Teller's Bullshit! the CEO, director, whatever you want to call this person of PETA is diabetic. So she needs insulin to live. Well insulin was tested on animals, and certain strains are made by animals. So for her to live she must abuse animals. Now the point being natural selection should have kicked in here at some point, and well taken care of her, but because humans use research on animals to help humans AND animals (the vet didn't learn how to take care of cats and dogs by magic) with sickness, this person lives to make her wacko friends blown crap up.

Also pointed out was that PETA spent some money on a large freezer. This freezer was used for cadavers, animal cadavers, because they end up euthanizing animals they take in but cannot find homes for, ie what the Human Society has do sometimes. Check out the episode, its on 2nd season I believe which is out on DVD.

So the moral of this story is that, fine have ideals, have crazy ideals no normal person would find moral, but don't be a hypocrit...makes you look like an asshole.

Selex

You're ignorant, or lazy, or both.

[Grendel Drago]

Unfortunately, the Bush admin can not persue them because of people like you that are constantly accusing Bush of personally doing illegal wiretaps and spending crazy stupid sums of money on shiny new technology and then having the ACLU sue over it, preventing any administration from ever being able to any type of survelence...ever, even if it means stopping a terrorist attack like this one or one from overseas.

You're willfully ignorant, or stupid, or lying.

The issue was never with "any surveillance... ever". The issue was never with secret surveillance. The issue was with breaking the law.

Here's how it is. The administration wants to wiretap people. There's a method called FISA for doing this. FISA allows for immediate taps in your smoking-nuke situation, as long as paperwork is submitted to a notoriously rubber-stampy court, which operates in secrecy, within three days. There is nothing that the administration needs to do other than file some paperwork. They have refused to do this. FISA clearly states that for wiretapping to occur, it must be used.

The administration is claiming that it has the authority to wiretap people secretly, whenever it wants, with no judicial oversight, ever. Despite that the law clearly says it can't. I'm going to put this in italics, so you pay attention. The President is not a King. He is subject to the law. If he doesn't like the law, he can act to change it. He cannot just ignore it.

The only possible reasons for doing this are (1) the President wants to wiretap his political opponents, (2) he wants to flex his Presidential balls. We can't know which, and neither will anyone else, because this all goes on in secret, with no accountability, not even to a secret court.

Now, if you make the claim that the ACLU and company are against any and all wiretapping again, I'm going to bap you in the nose with a rolled-up newspaper. You have no excuse.

How to Counter Attack

[Courageous]

In my area of the world, there was a famous white supremacist who was always squeaky clean. Eventually, one of the kids who hung out with him on occasion killed someone. The family sued the white supremacist for "contributory" reasons, and won. They took everything he owned.

Easy enough. Do the same thing here. Go after the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) for encouraging this kind of thing. It's right on their website, the masks, clearly instruments of anonymity and terror. Take 'em down, they have it coming.

C//

This is perfectly valid research.

[posterlogo]

I'm very sad that it is so easy for you to believe that a scientist would needlessly torture macaques. What exactly are you credentials when you say "it is difficult for me to believe, given the state of neuroscience, that these experiments on monkeys were so much more valuable than would have been experiments on say, mice, or salamanders, or what-have-you"? Honestly, I'd love to know about all that "research" you did on google to arrive at that conclusion. IF you really want to know, tried going to www.pubmed.org and search for the primary literature. You'll realize that Dr. Ringach has done some really pioneering work on determining the precise wiring of the visual cortex. I'm not sure how to explain this to you, but hopefully it will suffice to say that he is not some crazed sadist sitting around poking out monkey's eyeballs. It is also extremely difficult to explain to a lay-person just how many hoops a researcher has to jump through before conducting animal research, let alone primate research. Let's just say you don't do it unless there are absolutely no other options. The cost and bureaucracy associated are prohibitive to "torturers" as you put it. Dr. Ringach studies the brain, not eyeballs. You can't just pick any animal for that (BTW, your opinion on primates could just as easily be someone else's opinion on mice, or flies for that matter). If you want to know the real scoop instead of jumping to the same conclusions these terrorists did, I encourage you to look at the primary literature. If you are still not convinced, I encourage you to lobby against this research, and maybe put your money where your mouth is by refusing any and all medication (you do know they are tested on animals, right? especially stuff like vaccines).

Welcome to the jungle

[j.leidner]

When animals agree to a set of minimum behavioral norms that define a civil society, then they'll have rights. Until then, it's the law of the jungle that defines the lives and fortunes of animals.

I'm looking forward to the day when homo sapiens agrees on a universal minimum behavioral norm and sticks to it.

Until then, it's the law of the jungle that defines the lives and fortunes of humans.

The lies are what clinch it for me.

[Grendel Drago]

If they really believed in what they're doing, they'd be honest about it. But they dress it up in weasel words like "direct action". Consider this.

Lauren Gazzola was, according to her supporters, "alleged to have operated a website that reported on and expressed ideological support for protest activity against Huntingdon and its business affiliates. For this they are charged with "terrorism" and face an aggregate of 23 years in Federal Prison."

Wow, that sucks. I mean, operate a website and go to jail? Pretty fucked up. We're living in a fascist nation. Time to join the revolu--oh, wait. Apparently they posted home addresses and phone numbers, and exhorted their members to engage in exciting activities such as:

demonstrations at one's home using a loudspeaker; abusive graffiti, posters and stickers on one's car and house; invading offices and, damaging property and stealing documents; chaining gates shut, and blocking gates; physical assault including spraying cleaning fluid into one's eyes; smashing the windows of one's house while the individual's family was at home; flooding one's home while the individual was away; vandalizing one's car; firebombing one's car; bomb hoaxes; threatening telephone calls and letters including threats to kill or injure one's partner or children; e-mail bombs in an attempt to crash computers; sending continuous black faxes causing fax machines to burn out; telephone blockades by repeated dialing to prevent the use of the telephone; and arranging for an undertaker to call to collect one's body.

Yeah, they're just like Gandi.

50. On or about August 10, 2002, members of the conspiracy, including defendant LAUREN GAZZOLA, assembled outside the home of RH, an employee of M. Corp. and, using a megaphone, threatened RH, his wife and family with burning down their home.

Who could have ever foreseen that such acts could have legal consequences?

Re:You walk a fine line.

[Sycraft-fu]

No, my opinion doesn't enter the equation. This activity is illegal. Threatening someone is illegal, arson is illegal, destruction of property is illegal, assault is illegal. I don't think it should be legal to support those who commit those crimes, and to try and shield them. If I tell someone to beat you up, provide them with weapons and a map to your house, I'm as responsible as they are. That's the law.

Well what I believe is that if an organization supports something, and one of it's members does it, and the organization then condones that and applauds the member, they should be liable. None of this "But we didn't TELL him to do it," bullshit. If you say it ought to be done, and then reward those that do it, and help conceal their involvement, that's the same thing in my mind. You are providing them with means and support. Much like the government goes after charities that funnel money to foreign extremists, I think this is the same thing.

You can say whatever you want (threats are illegal though), my problem is when you act on it, and then try to disclaim responsibility. Organizations do have some responsibility for the actions of their members. For example there are plenty of pro life organizations that would kick out and turn in to the police anyone who attacked a doctor. Why? Because they believe ALL life is sacred, including that of the doctor. They aren't responsible if a member goes off and does something, they clearly don't support it.

However if there's an organization that extols killing doctors, posts lists of names and addresses online, and treats those that do as heroes, they should be liable. They can't hide behind the first amendment and claim that they never intended for people to act on what they were saying, bullshit. That's the same as a company having a policy that rewards employees for stealing from customers and saying "Well we didn't MAKE them do it, and we didn't expect they'd actually act on it, we were just exercising free speech."

Saying that animal testing should stop is free speech. Telling people to commit acts of violence is not.

I do not think you know what that means

[Sycraft-fu]

Torture means: the infliction of intense pain to punish, coerce, or afford sadistic pleasure. That's not what's happening with animal testing. Don't use an emotionally loaded term to try and push your point. It's not torture, unless you twist the definition of torture as to be meaningless.

When my doctor injected my foot with novocaine to remove warts, it was the most painful thing I've ever felt. I was screaming as loud as I could from the pain. However he wasn't torturing me, he was causing me pain because it was necessary to prevent worse future pain, and because I needed a medical procedure done.

Torture is in the reason, not in the action. Also, primates in these studies are under anesthesia, so they don't feel pain.

That's even more amazing.

[Grendel Drago]

Because the courts have been infiltrated by leftists, just like journalism has. Clinton appointed some of the worst, most obstructionist judges we've ever seen. (I bet Hillary had more to do with it, seeing as how they're mostly women (butt-ugly women that Bill wouldn't be interested in)). The secret court was being very obstructive during the Bush administration. In the cases the warrants were rejected (all of them during GW's presidency, BTW) they were all eventually granted on appeal, so these judges are just being nit picky. Why the fuck do judges get to decide national security issues?

The nit-picky, leftist, Clinton-appointed, obstructionist judges who rejected around one out of every five thousand warrant applications? Could you be more specific about the warrants that were "all" rejected during GW's presidency? Perhaps we're talking about a different FISA court, though I don't see how.

We elect the president, he doesn't want to get impeached and shit, that's why I trust him. I trust the NSA because it's run by ordinary people, like myself.

Your faith in the government is touching, really, but I don't think I should have to hand power without oversight to people and then trust them to do the right thing with it. (And what does "he doesn't want to get impeached and shit" have to do with anything?)

Judges don't have any concern or oversight, they can make a bad decision and nobody will know/care. Look at this latest attempt by some nut judge to block the NSA program. Fucking nut judges.

Yes, darn them, with their "constitution" and "the President has to follow the law" and "checks and balances".

So you either trust secret court judge, or you trust the president, obviously you trust secret court judge more. What you refer to as accountability, I refer to as bureaucracy.

No, the point is that we don't have to trust one person or group. This is why we have separation of powers. This is why we don't allow power to be centralized in one place.

And what makes the NSA "ordinary people", but the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court "bureaucracy"?

You just want some perma Clinton appointee to be dictating national security issues. It's simple, really.

Speaking of Clinton, would you be kosher with Clinton wielding this sort of power? Would you be okay with the knowledge that Clinton could be wiretapping anyone, anywhere, and nobody outside his administration would ever know? Would you trust him not to be wiretapping RNC headquarters? If not, doesn't your faith in assigning these kingly powers (and make no mistake, this "unitary executive" nonsense where the president makes up his own laws is nothing if not kingly) to the office of the President mean that you simply trust the man? Are you comfortable with the next administration having the power to make up laws as they see fit? With the next Democratic administration doing so? And if not, why are you convinced that the government, once given this power, will politely put it away and never use it again?

How do you get off calling me a liar? I don't see why my personal integrity should come into question here. It's a cheap tactic, it's about all you leftists can hack up these days.

Well, your claim above that FISA warrants were being denied was trivially debunked. Were you lying and hoping that I wouldn't look it up? Had you seen the claim somewhere and were just parroting it back at me, being too lazy to look it up yourself?

And if calling you a liar is all I can "hack up these days", why didn't you respond to my initial questions about why the President, if he needed some powers he didn't have, didn't actually ask for them? That is how our system of government works, you know. The legislative branch makes the law, and the execu

Torture.

[David Rolfe]

Wow, I didn't know they made dictionaries with only one definition per term! Here's what you forgot to mention when you were making the semantic argument against torturing animals (using just def 1 for the noun form that wasn't even used, sheesh):

noun-
2. Excruciating physical or mental pain; agony: the torture of waiting in suspense.
3. Something causing severe pain or anguish.
verb-
1. To subject (a person or an animal) to torture.
2. To bring great physical or mental pain upon (another). See synonyms at afflict.
3. To twist or turn abnormally; distort: torture a rule to make it fit a case. (cite: online AHD)

So when the GP said (quoting) "torturing monkeys" -- a valid moral concern, assuming that afflicting physical or mental pain to sensate/sentient beings is, you know, undesirable -- your entire post could have been just this: "Also, primates in these studies are under anesthesia, so they don't feel pain." That would have been sufficient to rebut his claim with out all the pandering bullshit.

So -- when I got all my wisdom teeth out and had stiches in my jaw-muscles I'll honestly say the next few weeks of trying to eat were... torture. I agree though, having some warts removed might not be torture.

In short, you can torture people and animals without punishment, coercion or sadism in mind! Cheers!

Re:That's amazing.

[CCW]

He shouldn't have called you a liar. It's almost as cheap of a tactic as criticising judges for their appearance and gender. You are clearly willfully ignorant, and need to read a bit more on the topic before you earn the right to disparage others opinions. "Infiltrated by leftists" is a handy excuse to ignore data that is contrary to your preconceptions.

Fact: Between 1979 and 2001 FISA rejected NO warrants. None. They rejected 2 in 2002 and 4 in 2003. Those same years they approved 1228 and 1727 respectively. The 2 rejected in 2002 were approved in appeal. In 2005 they approved 1758 with no rejections. This is not an obstructionist record that warrants your abusive language or attitude.
Fact: the judge that struck down the NSA wiretaps is a Carter appointee. Clinton had nothing to do with her.

Here's a thought: You can't trust the president or the judge or the congress. That's why the Constitution of this United States set them up in opposition. The president swore to uphold the constitution and live by its principles when he was elected. When he acts contrary to the Constitution by acting without oversight he is violating those principles and breaking his sworn oath. Your trust in him is misplaced.

If we were not overextended in Iraq, Iran wouldn't be challenging us. If we weren't foolishly addicted to oil because our government has spent billions of taxpayer dollars to subsidize the extraction industry and little to seed research into alternatives they would be irrelevant.

Save your indignation for those who deserve it - the ignorant voters who put this mediocre man into the presidents office and return a profligate corrupt congress year after year.

I'm going to pray tonight that nobody running the NSA is anything like you. I hope they gather the data, review it thoroughly and draw conclusions that are based on the facts, not their prejudicial view of the world.

Re:or just Fox News-style spin

[selex]

First of all please never refer to my spin as Fox-style...its more Colbert Report style, still working on the Daily Show style.

Secondly, the time table doesn't matter. Research breakthrough A was discovered by experiment B, which used an animal. So if you're against experiment B because it used an animal in the experiment then breakthrough A is not valid according to your own code of ethics. Just because it was discovered 20-30 years ago doesn't make a difference. An animal was still used to extend your life. So if hypothetically insulin had not been discovered 20-30 years ago, but was found tomorrow would the PETA person still use it even though animals were used? My guess would be yes, because they have the same self-preservation instincts that every animal has, and their rational would be that they need to take the insulin now to help animals in the future. So your life is more important then the people who you harass and hurt, because you're not willing to be a martyr for your cause, but will to kill others for it. Thats just selfishness.

So at some point there should have been something that clicked, call it logic, call it something else that says "well not all animal testing is bad, and some of it might be benefical to the world." Yes I agree that some forms of testing are immoral, like make-up on the rabbits, but not all of it is bad. Much of it helps.

Selex

Why not...

[coma_bug]

English, does not have an adequate word for this kind of struggle, but ironically Arabic does: jihad.

Why not crusade?

Re:Why not...

[hey!]

I'd considered "crusade", but rejected for two reasons. The first is that the word has historical baggage, right from its very creation.

The crusades came about in large part because the Benedictine monks of Cluny were struggling to reform and control the Roman church after it had absorbed a large number of northern European barbarian chieftans and their retainers. This was the context in which the Eastern and Roman churches split. Just because they were baptized, these barbarian warriors did not change overnight, giving up their habits of pillage and petty warfare. The Cluniacs came up with a program which must have seemed to them, in the words used by Col North do describe the Iran Contra deal "a neat idea". They'd harness the martial energy of the barbarian knights to a useful purpose, at the same time the effort would provide a kind of military pilgrimage that would tutor them in Christian spirituality.

So, what the Cluniacs and their sophisticated disciples intended was very much a kind of struggle of the sort I describe. The knights, however, perceived the effort in a much simpler and more familiar way: vendetta. Somebody else was holding clan lands. Plus they decided that they had an issue of blood to settle with the Jews. Up until this point, anti-semitism as we know it did not exist.

The second reason is that allowing that "crusade" could be used would weaken my point, which was probably the more telling of the two reasons. Then you had to come along and notice. Thanks much.

a "fossilization of the mind" -- what's that?

[misanthrope101]

Terrorism relies on a fossilization of the mind, and a sociopathic dissociation from other people.

I think that's a strong mischaracterization. When you have battleships and bombers and missiles, you use them to get what you want, and call it "legitimate" violence. When your opponent has vastly inferior arms but won't come out in the open where you can easily kill him, you call him a terrorist. It isn't even enough to say that terrorists target civilians -- Nagasaki and Dresden were both non-military targets, and I doubt the US military considers itself terrorist. As far as I'm concerned, "terrorism" is just hand-waving. Once you condone the use of violence to get what you want, you can't make a very compelling moral argument against somone using violence against you to get what they want. But emotive words like "terrorism," combined with a very selective narrative where the civilians killed by your side aren't mentioned, stands in as the closest we can get to a moral argument in the context of an amoral worldview.

One Nit

[gillbates]

Up until this point, anti-semitism as we know it did not exist.

As a matter of fact, it did. By the time the Crusades got going, Muslims had invaded Spain and forced the Jews to either convert or be killed. They did the same to the Christians. Had the Pope the audacity to start the Crusades many years earlier, the multitudes of Jews in Spain and Jerusalem could have been spared their lives.