usual suspect wrote:
> > frlsht wrote:
(snip)
> > Run-off, evaporation and accelerated transpiration rates make it enormously
> > wasteful. Flood irrigation leads to soil compaction and changes in soil
> > chemistry. It's used, primarily, in underdeveloped countries or in the western US > > for use on _pastureland_, _grassland_, _alfalfa fields_ and grain crops of the > > water-guzzling type.
> Thanks for your useless lecture.
Not useless, since it directs attention to the crops most commonly
watered by flood irrigation, _pastureland_, _grassland_, _alfalfa
fields_, all used to feed livestock. Further, it shows that flood
irrigation systems waste water and damage the soil, proving that growers
who use this method are poor land stewards, even without calculating the
toll their practices take on wildlife.
> > Vegans hooked on rice can select wild varities grown on natural floodplains.
> Most vegans eat standard crop rices as a daily staple.
Do you have any evidence to substantiate this?
(snip)
> > That photo of the mangled fawn that you creeps use to 'prove' the existence of
> > field deaths...it's of a silage field.
> I've used a combine to harvest cotton (and milo and maize). I've seen what happens > to deer, rabbits, snakes, and birds.
Not that I believe your red dirt anecdote, but haven't you yokels heard
of flushing bars?
> Do you wear cotton clothing?
Exclusively, except for synthetic outerwear and footwear.
> Your lifestyle is NOT cruelty-free.
I would not be foolish enough to claim it is.
(snip)
> > Lastly, explain how dying in the field where you were born is as "horrid" as being > > transported for hours, sometimes days, to a slaughterhouse, being unloaded into a > > holding pen with hundreds of strange animals, being pushed and shocked with prods > > wielded by unfamiliar humans, slipping and sliding in the feces and gore of the
> > animals ahead, and having a bolt gun discharged into your brain, sometimes twice, > > sometimes three times.
> First, many animals don't die in the field itself; some of them are bound into bales > (straw, hay)
What would prevent a live animal from chewing its way out of a bale of
hay? It's certainly capable of chewing its way into one.
> some are transported with grains or other products
Okay, so some are, unfortunately, relocated without their consent.
> Second, transportation to slaughter rarely is a matter of days;
The 48-Hour law exists for a reason. Slaughterhouse guru, Grandin, sets
32 hours as the maximum travel time without unloading and reloading
livestock for a rest stop. There are fewer slaughterhouses in the US
then there were a decade ago and they are more specialized. More
animals are being transported farther distances, not less animals and
not shorter distances.
>> finishing lots are usually adjacent to slaughterhouses.
Uh, how do you think the cattle get to the feedlots, Mr.
My-Family-Are-Ranchers? Do you think they're born there?
> Third, animals find slipping and sliding in manure less distasteful than humans
According to Temple Grandin, the single most stressful aspect of
pre-slaughter handling is loss of footing.
> (if you'd grown up around cattle you'd know that)
I grew up around swine. I know that animals do not have the same
aversion to feces as we do. I also know that animals are terrified of
losing their balance and avoid slippery surfaces like the plague.
> I'm not saying it's a pretty picture for the end of any animal's life.
That's a switch.
> The fact remains, animals suffer and die regardless of what one eats regardless of > your personal dietary preferences.
The prolonged suffering of animals sent to commercial slaughter is not
comparable to the suffering of an ex-sanguinated field mouse. How long
does it take for a 2" animal to lose enough blood to induce
unconsciousness and death?
> The only way around that is to grow your own food or co-op with others whose > sensitivities match your own.
This is what I do, but my location makes it easier for me than most.
(snip)
> > Where are your "facts" showing: 1) a vegan diet causes more suffering and death. > > 2) field deaths are as "horrid" as slaughterhouse deaths.
> 1) http://www.animalrights.net/articles/2002/000083.html
You mean this?
"One study Davis mentions, for example, found a 50 percent reductionin
gray-tailed voles from just a single mowing of alfalfa."
This is the closest the article comes to quantifiable data. Alfalfa is
a feed crop for livestock and it's cut lower and more often than most
grain crops grown for human consumption.
> 2) personal experiences in agriculture
You know better than to offer anecdotes as evidence. If we're going to
start accepting tales of personal experiences, I'd like to add my own.
Everyday I trudge across a wide field, cut with gang-mowers a minimum of
once a month, to feed cats. This is unused cemetary land, pesticides
and poisons are prohibited by law. Consequently, there is a large
resident population of voles, gophers and shrews.
The cemetary workers mow the weeds to the bare ground. Unlike growers,
they are unfettered by concerns about soil quality and the benefits of
crop residue. By the evening of the day they mow, the entire field is
riddled with newly dug tunnels and holes. It's clear to me that most of
the animals living in the field survive the close-cropping of their
vegetative cover.
(snip)
> My brain works quite well, skag.
I've noticed a marked disintegration whenver Ball isn't around for you
to imitate.
(snip)
> > Okay, now you've got something else to prove. Please show that compassion is an
> > incorrect human response to the suffering of others.
> In general, the compassion of a vegetarian diet is completely misplaced
A diet is not capable of compassion or cruelty, goofy.
> and unfounded. Dietary abstention from animal parts does not mean that such a diet
> is free of animal death or suffering.
Maybe not, but such a diet is free from the suffering and death of
animals held in the throes of the meat industry. It is free from the
suffering and death of animals stalked and killed in the morning mist by
humans wearing, gulp, flannel shirts.
> > In specific, your sense of compassion is overshadowed by your personal support of > > animal rights terrorism.
I believe people who hurt others, unprovoked, deserve to be punished.
Cows, pigs, chickens, deer, rabbits and ducks don't, normally, hurt
others intentionally.
(snip)
> > What's the bloody point in eating something that's supposed to look,taste, and/or > > feel like something you *won't* eat?
> Because veganism is not about aesthetics, doofus, it's about reducing the demand for > meat production.
> It's all about aesthetics, skag.
Is this supposed to be a convincing argument?
Let me help you out here. When intelligent people say veganism is about
aesthetics, not ethics, they mean vegans avoid meat because they are
repulsed by the look, taste and feel of meat. You've just given us
evidence they aren't.
> It's all about moral posturing.
If a meat-eater were to advocate eating only pasture-raised,
farm-slaughtered animals, would you say he was "posturing"?
(snip)
> >Please demonstrate the hypocrisy in a vegan eating a meat substitute item.
> I've already explained this numerous times.
Always unsuccessfully.
> Your moral posture allows you to eat, even desire, something which tastes, feels,
> and smells just like a product you find quite immoral. The taste apparently still
> appeals to you; your love for the cow and chicken has not yet exceeded your love for > the taste of their flesh.
If anything, people who enjoy or crave the taste of meat and yet abstain
from meat products are _more_ ethical than those for whom meat has no
appeal. Their dietary choices require self-denial and self-sacrifice.
> The issue is the *appeal* of such a close substitute. You still like and want to eat > meat.
As long as you don't, no principle of veganism is broken.
(snip)
> The magazine's quality has dropped significantly over the years. So has yours,
> carpetmunch.
You'll never be anything but Ball's lowly apprentice, pal. Try to find
your own style. Mimicry doesn't become you.