OBSERVATIONS...

> > > > > >>>Good grief, Karen Winter! The OBVIOUS and CORRECT thing to
> > > > > >>>do would have been to adopt a FEMALE cockatiel! *That* would
> > > > > >>>have been the *respectful* thing to do.
> > > > > >>
> > > > > >>Since when has Karen been respectful of anyone or anything?
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Since always.

This is patently untrue, Lesley. Her insincerity rings in every post. And neither is she a particularly nice person: I remind you this is the same Karen Winter who threatened a couple summers ago to unleash some violent anarchist friends on another person who posts to these groups (and his family). She threatened that they were already watching him and his family, and that he was in danger.

> > > > > No. Never.
> > > >
> > > > You don't even know the meaning of the word.
> > >
> > > Someone who would call other people
> >
> > You're not a person
>
> You cut slack for someone who jacks off a little, defenseless bird
> and you call me evil, loathsome, fascist, etc. Nice.

This is the more important point: once again, "the side" has shown they'll circle the wagons to protect their own no matter how warped, depraved, insane, violent, nutty, or loony someone is or becomes. Even though Lesley has finally come around to the position that sex between humans and animals is aberrant and weird, she still embraces Karen as a comrade-in-arms because Karen, while thinking it's perfectly fine and normal to have sexual relations with animals, opposes eating them. In many instances involving "normal" people, this alone would be enough for someone to be ostracized among her peers; for "the side," though, it's a small bump down the queer path of life.

The same "circling the wagons" exists with respect to Lesley and her crazy posts about inner earth beings and all the rest of the stuff that would, in circumstances involving NORMAL people, result in calls for immediate psychiatric treatment. Instead, others on "the side" see her as some kind of asset.

One exception: Derek has demonstrated that he won't turn a blind eye to Karen's sexual depravity. On the other hand, he has waffled between endorsing Lesley as some kind of expert on nutrition when her qualifications (graduate of a foot-rub course in London) are quite lacking and once or twice calling her out for her wild claims about reflexology and curing her sister with it. Nevermind that her knowledge of nutrition is based on pseudoscience from crackpot "vegan" websites, too. The side was ultimately more important than tales of chemtrails and little people beneath Mount Shasta.

Thus, sticking with "the side" appears to be more important to its members than either the facts of the issues at hand or the sanity or the normalcy of others on "the side." Given the whole lot of you, I think it's very fair when people judge others by the company they keep.