VICK DA GREAT

[MJZiggy]

Patler, to answer the whole question, how 'bout this?

I think that dog fighting and the associated mistreatment is reprehensible. Same with bullfighting. They just torture and disable the thing making it an unfair fight to begin with. I've never seen a bullfight but have known people who went and left disgusted after a short while. I think if I were to go, I'd sort of be rooting for the bull. Not that it will help him any. I feel the same way about cockfighting and ratfighting. There's no purpose and our entertainment is not worth killing.

That said, we are carnivores and animals raised for the purpose of feeding us and killed humanely are a different story. I have dogs as companions and would not choose to eat them, nor do I eat lamb or veal or goose liver pate. I would never hunt, but the folks who do who then eat their quarry are not the same as people who senselessly torture animals.

I do go to the state fair and have seen the cows (usually with a superimposed steak cut drawing--think cartoon reaction here). I choose not to become buddies with them, because really I need my protein.

[Harlan Huckleby]

I hope Vick makes a successful comeback.

I read columns today suggesting that Vick become a spokesperson for animal rights. Gag me with a spoon. Why pretend?

I hope Vick is a changed person, but I doubt our ability to tell.

[Harlan Huckleby]

Ricky Williams is doing well, he's training to be an acupuncturist and massage therapist for his after-football career.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/22/sports/football/22williams.html

[Patler]

Patler, to answer the whole question, how 'bout this?

I think that dog fighting and the associated mistreatment is reprehensible. Same with bullfighting. They just torture and disable the thing making it an unfair fight to begin with. I've never seen a bullfight but have known people who went and left disgusted after a short while. I think if I were to go, I'd sort of be rooting for the bull. Not that it will help him any. I feel the same way about cockfighting and ratfighting. There's no purpose and our entertainment is not worth killing.

That said, we are carnivores and animals raised for the purpose of feeding us and killed humanely are a different story. I have dogs as companions and would not choose to eat them, nor do I eat lamb or veal or goose liver pate. I would never hunt, but the folks who do who then eat their quarry are not the same as people who senselessly torture animals.

I do go to the state fair and have seen the cows (usually with a superimposed steak cut drawing--think cartoon reaction here). I choose not to become buddies with them, because really I need my protein.

That's where I draw the line too, intentionally causing severe harm and/or death for entertainment versus death for food. The first is a complete waste, the second a legitimate use.

I have no objection to those who eat dog. I don't think it is up to me to decide which animals should be eaten and which not.

[KYPack]

nor do I eat lamb or veal or goose liver pate.

WTF, Zig?

It's Braunschweiger, but from geese.

What's the big deal?

[Harlan Huckleby]

they force-feed the geese in a pretty brutal manner to get their livers to enlarge.

or some such thing.

[SkinBasket]

they force-feed the geese in a pretty brutal manner to get their livers to enlarge.

or some such thing.

Foie gras. More common with ducks than geese. Ducks are idiots so it's okay to stuff them full of liver-enlarging food. Geese are smarter, but I don't care about them. I've had one of each attempt to bite me with their stupid bills in my life, so I say fuck em in the ass if that makes them taste better.

I don't eat foie gras because I think it's gross. I do eat non-enlarged turkey heart, but none of that other garbage they call giblets. I currently hold the captured souls of at least three dozen turkeys in my stomach. Maybe that's why I don't like foie gras. Stupid birds.

[mraynrand]

they force-feed the geese in a pretty brutal manner to get their livers to enlarge.

So what's wrong with that?

[bobblehead]

I think you are a sick fuck regardless of culture when you decide to torture an animal, and beat an animal to death because of your own personal gain.

i get dog fighting, what I don't get is the poor fucking treatment of these animals before and after the fight. I guess using the cultureral outlet means that African Americans are sick fucks that love to kick the shit out of dogs. Excuse me, African Americans in the South. Is Virginia even considered the South anymore? Where does the blame get shifted to next? I know you didn't specifically blame the Black Culture for dog fighting, you just said he is conditioned differently. Well I guess it would be an argument if you said that the culture that he was raised in were indifferent to dogs. Not a culture that abused animals.

Yet bullfighting has been practiced openly and accepted as a cultural ritual for a very long time. The bull is openly maimed in a traditional Spanish style bullfight by severing muscle with a lance and inserting barbs into the muscles to keep the bulls head low during the "fight" with the matador. The fight can go on for a long time from the first lancing, with the bull suffering and bleeding profusely before he is killed. Again, all for the entertainment of the spectators.

Instead of one dog maiming another, we have humans maiming a bull. Is it really so different?

Neither form of entertainment is acceptable, or legal here.

Sure, but are our standards necessarily the right standards?

Is it OK to raise dogs, butcher them humanely and eat them? Some people do it, but I suspect most Americans find it reprehensible. Yet we raise, butcher and eat cows without a second thought for most of us.

If only they could learn to stop asking what's in the funny looking dish with water chestnuts and bean sprouts!

way to perpetuate racial/cultural stereotypes....I know, your a liberal so its okay.

[Fritz]

Patler, to answer the whole question, how 'bout this?

I think that dog fighting and the associated mistreatment is reprehensible. Same with bullfighting. They just torture and disable the thing making it an unfair fight to begin with. I've never seen a bullfight but have known people who went and left disgusted after a short while. I think if I were to go, I'd sort of be rooting for the bull. Not that it will help him any. I feel the same way about cockfighting and ratfighting. There's no purpose and our entertainment is not worth killing.

That said, we are carnivores and animals raised for the purpose of feeding us and killed humanely are a different story. I have dogs as companions and would not choose to eat them, nor do I eat lamb or veal or goose liver pate. I would never hunt, but the folks who do who then eat their quarry are not the same as people who senselessly torture animals.

I do go to the state fair and have seen the cows (usually with a superimposed steak cut drawing--think cartoon reaction here). I choose not to become buddies with them, because really I need my protein.

That's where I draw the line too, intentionally causing severe harm and/or death for entertainment versus death for food. The first is a complete waste, the second a legitimate use.

I have no objection to those who eat dog. I don't think it is up to me to decide which animals should be eaten and which not.

No, it's not. I believe McDonald's is making those decisions...

[Lurker64]

they force-feed the geese in a pretty brutal manner to get their livers to enlarge.

I just don't eat liver. It's a filter for poisons, why would I put it in my body?

[Tarlam!]

...Same with bullfighting. They just torture and disable the thing making it an unfair fight to begin with. I've never seen a bullfight but have known people who went and left disgusted after a short while. I think if I were to go, I'd sort of be rooting for the bull. Not that it will help him any. I feel the same way about cockfighting and ratfighting. There's no purpose and our entertainment is not worth killing.

My kids and some friends had a vigorous discussion about bullfighting and to a person concluded that the "sport" is actually a good thing for the bulls involved.

I have attended a bullfight. Appreciating it is probably impossible if you don't know the "rules". A lot like Chess, Cricket or, dare-I-say, Gridiron? Aesthetics aside, here's what I think about bullfighting and by default, why there is no comparison to dog/cockfighting:

Ultimately, fighting bulls owe their very existence to the "sport" and what an existence it is (in bull terms). They are pampered their entire very long bull lives, eat only the finest, roam only the grassiest, breed with only the "sexiest" etc etc etc. Then, they are killed in "battle", which, BTW, is what bulls live to do. Bulls, in general, have a very short agenda; they want to eat, drink, produce compost, mate and fight. They love to fight. The adrenalin they produce during a fight (either against another bull or a human) nullifies their ability to properly perceive, acknowledge and, ultimately, accept pain.

Fighting bulls may know they are in a fight to the death, but it isn't fear that grips them; I believe they always engage ready to die defending their turf. Fear is not in their limited vocabulary.

Nor is it pain that has them attack the Picadores' horses or make runs at the various capes. Bulls charge habitually.

Compare the fighting bull's existence to that of a bull bred for it's meat only. The term "meat production" does not inspire me with a gushy warm glow with regard to a bull's life and death here. In most parts of the world, such animals are kept in pens their entire lives to ease the load on the producers' lives, are shot full of hormones to "enhance" growth, antibiotics to prohibit infection and are slaughtered before they ever "meet" a cow. Then, they are consumed. The domestic food-type bull owes it's very short bull existence to satisfying my desire to eat it.

Scientific evidence concludes that pigs "know" they are about to be slaughtered and many suffer heart failures before the actual slaughtering (scared to death, as it were). I suspect cattle also have an inkling of what's to come and that simply cannot be pleasant.

Wild bulls (Ox, buffaloes) often fight and mortally wound each other. Their death can take days or weeks to set in and must be painful indeed!

In essence, the "death by sword" is comparatively humane.

Ask yourself this, Ziggy (et al): If you were a bull, would you rather live and die like the fighting bull, the wild bull or the domestic food bull?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullfighting

http://www.expatica.com/es/essentials_moving_to/essentials/Bullfighting-in-Spain_13768.html

Fighting dogs are "animated" to fight during their "training" which is where any comparison to bulls ends; cocks and siamese fighting fish naturally fight, but I don't know that betting on the outcome of a bullfight makes much sense.

[Patler]

I just don't eat liver. It's a filter for poisons, why would I put it in my body?

Because it tastes really good with onions?

[MichiganPackerFan]

I just don't eat liver. It's a filter for poisons, why would I put it in my body?

Because it tastes really good with onions?

Nice use of the Delicious Strategy. Hard to argue with Delicious.

[Zool]

Tar, do they tie rope around the bullfighters nuts too or just the bull?