Wrote a long e-mail to Gray Davis a few days ago thanking him for passing emissions standards that will inevitably affect the whole country. Maybe in a few years the tanks (aka SUV's) will not get any bigger, we can only hope. Stupid SUV's.

I know this is so not funny, but it kinda is in that sick animals attacking humans way; read here. One of my favorite stories is below. Dead serious, it was in the paper (no, not on April Fool's Day). Here is goes:

Shepard Killed by His Flock
Marsha Matrouh, Egypt- * A Bedouin shepard was shot in the chest and killed yesterday when one of his flock jogged his loaded shotgun while he slept, police said. They said the accident (karin's comment- yeah fucking right, that sheep was out for blood!) occured in the northern coastal governorate of Marsha Matrouh. Other Bedouins found the body of 20 year-old Mokhtar Fadl and took it to the hospital. Police seized the gun, which was not licensed.*

Sucks to be that guy. Maybe he sheered one of them too violently and it got pissed. Who knows? No one knows what goes on in the minds of animals and maybe we shouldn't. I really don't want hundreds of animals to suffer needlessly so we can know what they "think." We already torture and kill them because of cosmetic and prescription and illegal drug testing, definately don't need to be inflicting unneeded pain to try and "help" them. One one hand, yeah I want researchers to find cure's for skin cancer, MS and Parkinson's, but on the other hand, using monkeys and other animals in order to do this is a shitty ethical decision. If labs used them only for this purpose, maybe I would be more ok with it, but there is such a ridiculous amount of use of animals for laboratory research, you'd be fucking appalled. My friend in high school used to intern at NIH. His job was to feed cocaine to monkeys to see how they metabolized it. Sorry, but to me, that is completely needless. I am not a fan of humans thinking that because they are so called "smarter" than other primates and other creatures on this earth that we can do whatever the hell we please. I don't argue against the food chain if it was natural, but it's not. There is way too much mass production of animals, debeaking chickens so they don't peck each other to death because they are crammed ten fold in what equates to the size of a LP cover, giving cows bovine growth hormones so they will grow bigger faster (and give the farmer, aka death merchant, more money in their pocket), seperating baby cows from their mother at birth so they can become veal on your plate. This is totally un-natural selection and it is sad how little people care about this. How easily people dismiss this stuff. I have heard from many people, "I don't want to know." They are blissfull in their ignorance. I can't live my life that way. I wouldn't want to. But I wouldn't push it on you. If you want me to drop knowledge, I will, but only when asked.

I remember I gave my old friend Steve this book on Animal Liberation many years ago. At the time I was working for PETA as an intern and was a vegan. That book turned him vegetarian. He wanted to know more about vegetarianism and what exactly is going on in these farms. Seeing those pictures and hearing about slaughterhouses made him sick and he stopped eating meat. I don't think it was real easy for him because most of his friends and family were carnivores and when you initially become a vegetarian a lot of people don't think you are real serious and can lack sensitivity. It also kinda sucks when you are with people who are all meat-eaters, especially when you need to eat on the go. No McD's for me, no Wendy's for me. Burger King sells veggie burgers, but I've had a few and have my doubts. Oh, well, don't expect others to really make sacrifices for me. The people I work with have been very cool about this and I appreciate it very much. Alright, animal ranting done. Visit Compassion Over Killing to see proof that this isn't all animal rights bullshit propagenda.