The Seal Hunt Mega-Thread
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Duotone81
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Sexual preferences aside, who wouldn‘t have a problem with cannibals? Gotta draw the line somewhere man.
LOL
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2005-04-09
Seal slaughter shows Canada's true colours
SEAN TWIST, For the London Free Press
The one good thing about the East Coast seal hunt is this: It just proves Canadians are hypocrites.
Even as the rest of the world looks on in horror that we still allow this brutal, unforgivable practice, we still pat ourselves on the back for being such a great people.
We're the peacekeepers of the world, we proclaim. We invented hockey! We're Shania Twain's home country, whenever she decides to leave her chalet in Switzerland!
And -- oh, unless we forget -- we're the country that allows men to club defenceless animals to death. Go Canada!
As a country, we have been rather big on ourselves for the last little while. We like to assume this sniffy superiority over our neighbour to the south, which seems -- oddly -- to be predicated on our stand on violence. Our tighter gun controls, we like to think, means we have a greater abhorrence for violence. That we are a kinder, gentler nation of western consumers. Therefore our haloes, and holier than thous.
Yet with setting ourselves up as such a standard -- added with our (fading) reputation as the world's peacekeepers -- you would think we'd try to live up to it.
Or, at the very least, extend our alleged kindness and caring to our own home. Since the homeless problem can't be solved, SARS seems like a sleeping dragon, and we can't even discuss abortion without people turning it into a religious war, you'd think the least we could do is be kind to animals.
Well, no. Because, you know, animals can't vote.
Which is too bad, because since so many seals live near Quebec and the Maritimes, they'd probably have a good chance of getting some decent transfer payments. Or, failing that, they could claim their seal culture is being threatened -- what with the clubbing and all -- and maybe get a federal arts grant, and hire Toronto actors to play them on the ice floes. The clubbers probably wouldn't notice the difference until the seals started asking for a Starbucks and Now Magazine.
The only element in this tragedy that is refreshing is that the Canadian government at least doesn't lie about the reason for the seal hunt.
Well, okay, I'm being generous. They don't so much lie as clumsily obfuscate. The government-speak runs along the lines of "needing to restore a balance among an over-population of seals." An over-population, it seems, meaning "any."
Seals, you see, have this terrible, destructive habit of needing to eat fish to survive. We have a fishing industry that also needs those fish. Guess who wins? When presented with the fact that we are running out of fish stocks, not because of seals going back to the buffet table once too often but because of our own greed and short-sightedness in overfishing, politicians like to put their hands behind their backs and feign deafness.
It's so much easier to allow a distant slaughter than assume responsibility.
It's also easier than facing the truth: The fishing industry is dead. The fishing lifestyle is over -- if not now, it will be in 20 years.
And instead of government putting more money into retraining programs, it chooses to just kill off any natural competition for the product. Maintain the illusion with a bloodied club. Skin animals while they're still alive. Because, you know, it's the right thing to do. Or so we keep telling ourselves above the pitiful barks of pain and terror.
But once the seals are slaughtered back to more "manageable" levels, who will be next? Will the Canadian navy be instructed to take up whaling? Will orchestrated oil slicks be allowed to cut down on seabird populations? And will Canadians just sit, nod, and reach for the channel changers? Probably. Why change now?
A peace-loving, caring country? Sure we are.
You want proof, the evidence is lying bloodied and crying on the ice floes, trembling before the next crunch of the bat.
http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/Columnists/London/Sean_Twist/2005/04/09/989050.html
Seal slaughter shows Canada's true colours
SEAN TWIST, For the London Free Press
The one good thing about the East Coast seal hunt is this: It just proves Canadians are hypocrites.
Even as the rest of the world looks on in horror that we still allow this brutal, unforgivable practice, we still pat ourselves on the back for being such a great people.
We're the peacekeepers of the world, we proclaim. We invented hockey! We're Shania Twain's home country, whenever she decides to leave her chalet in Switzerland!
And -- oh, unless we forget -- we're the country that allows men to club defenceless animals to death. Go Canada!
As a country, we have been rather big on ourselves for the last little while. We like to assume this sniffy superiority over our neighbour to the south, which seems -- oddly -- to be predicated on our stand on violence. Our tighter gun controls, we like to think, means we have a greater abhorrence for violence. That we are a kinder, gentler nation of western consumers. Therefore our haloes, and holier than thous.
Yet with setting ourselves up as such a standard -- added with our (fading) reputation as the world's peacekeepers -- you would think we'd try to live up to it.
Or, at the very least, extend our alleged kindness and caring to our own home. Since the homeless problem can't be solved, SARS seems like a sleeping dragon, and we can't even discuss abortion without people turning it into a religious war, you'd think the least we could do is be kind to animals.
Well, no. Because, you know, animals can't vote.
Which is too bad, because since so many seals live near Quebec and the Maritimes, they'd probably have a good chance of getting some decent transfer payments. Or, failing that, they could claim their seal culture is being threatened -- what with the clubbing and all -- and maybe get a federal arts grant, and hire Toronto actors to play them on the ice floes. The clubbers probably wouldn't notice the difference until the seals started asking for a Starbucks and Now Magazine.
The only element in this tragedy that is refreshing is that the Canadian government at least doesn't lie about the reason for the seal hunt.
Well, okay, I'm being generous. They don't so much lie as clumsily obfuscate. The government-speak runs along the lines of "needing to restore a balance among an over-population of seals." An over-population, it seems, meaning "any."
Seals, you see, have this terrible, destructive habit of needing to eat fish to survive. We have a fishing industry that also needs those fish. Guess who wins? When presented with the fact that we are running out of fish stocks, not because of seals going back to the buffet table once too often but because of our own greed and short-sightedness in overfishing, politicians like to put their hands behind their backs and feign deafness.
It's so much easier to allow a distant slaughter than assume responsibility.
It's also easier than facing the truth: The fishing industry is dead. The fishing lifestyle is over -- if not now, it will be in 20 years.
And instead of government putting more money into retraining programs, it chooses to just kill off any natural competition for the product. Maintain the illusion with a bloodied club. Skin animals while they're still alive. Because, you know, it's the right thing to do. Or so we keep telling ourselves above the pitiful barks of pain and terror.
But once the seals are slaughtered back to more "manageable" levels, who will be next? Will the Canadian navy be instructed to take up whaling? Will orchestrated oil slicks be allowed to cut down on seabird populations? And will Canadians just sit, nod, and reach for the channel changers? Probably. Why change now?
A peace-loving, caring country? Sure we are.
You want proof, the evidence is lying bloodied and crying on the ice floes, trembling before the next crunch of the bat.
http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/Columnists/London/Sean_Twist/2005/04/09/989050.html
- Reaction score
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- Points
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mmmmm......SealBurger....*drool*
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I personally don't think I am a particularily cruel or heartless person, but I honestly don't care, whether seals live or die. We eat cows for food and leather, does it really matter if people decided to skip the food part and go straight to the skin when it comes to seals? As for bashing seals' heads in, does it really matter how they die? No matter how you work it out, in my estimation, a seal is just an animal.
- Reaction score
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I think Mr. Twist needs to spend some time at the Better Beef abattoir in Guelph before he spouts off about killing defenceless animals,.........I suppose he thinks that burger he ate yesterday had a chance to say no? :
Now I'm certainly no hunter/killer type,[ I' ll even carry the spider outside before I'll squish it] but I make no illusions about where my steak came from. Just because I can't do it doesn't mean it wasn't done in my name when I buy it.
...and then these two seals walk into a bar and when the bartender says " what'll ya have?" they reply, "Anything but Canadian Club......
Now I'm certainly no hunter/killer type,[ I' ll even carry the spider outside before I'll squish it] but I make no illusions about where my steak came from. Just because I can't do it doesn't mean it wasn't done in my name when I buy it.
...and then these two seals walk into a bar and when the bartender says " what'll ya have?" they reply, "Anything but Canadian Club......
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...and then these two seals walk into a bar and when the bartender says " what'll ya have?" they reply, "Anything but Canadian Club......hehe
Personally, I like them with fried onions. They taste kinda like liver, not chicken. 8) Which raises the question: is taking the meat still a big part of th industry, or these days is it merely the pelts? Maybe I'm just a barbarian, but it doesn't really bother me if it is merely the latter.
Personally, I like them with fried onions. They taste kinda like liver, not chicken. 8) Which raises the question: is taking the meat still a big part of th industry, or these days is it merely the pelts? Maybe I'm just a barbarian, but it doesn't really bother me if it is merely the latter.
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I had either read or heard something vaguely in the distant past that relates to the hunting of seals with sound suppressed weapons. Does anyone remember anything like that?
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It's all Walt Disney's fault. He brought us Bambi, and introduced the "Talking" animals, now a lot of people have forgotten that they are just that; "Animals"
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I've said it before a THOUSAND times, the ONLY reason anyone gives a second thought to this practice (while conversely not giving a shit about cows) is because seals are cute. That's it, there's no great reason for it, people actually pay attention to this because seals are cute and they don't look like catfish.
Nothing makes me angrier (literally nothing) then someone who whines about the seal hunt like it's the anti-fucking-christs pasttime.
Nothing makes me angrier (literally nothing) then someone who whines about the seal hunt like it's the anti-fucking-christs pasttime.
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GRRRRR this shit makes me so mad. Don't kill the goddamn seal because it's cute, hitting it with a club is bad and mean, big bad meanies. Yet it's ok to hit a f*cking cow in the head with a sledge hammer, hang it upside down and slit it's throath and let it bleed to death. It's ok to shoot, yes shoot a moose or caribou because it is painless, WTF do greenpeace know about being shot and killed, how do they know it's painless. What if you're not a great shot and you only knock the animal down and it has to wait an hour for you to get to it, because it happens folks, it's happened to me. Also these people make a living off of seals, they make some money from it, it's there chosen career and it's been around for hundreds of years. So it's better to save the seals and let the people starve, oh the cutsie wutsie seals. I think I'll go around protesting protesters, yup, that's what I'll do, stop them from making money, see how they like it.
Pieman
Army.ca Veteran
- Reaction score
- 27
- Points
- 530
PLEASE HELP! SAVE CUDDLES!!!
Hello Seal fans,
I would like to introduce you to a friend of mine, his name is Cuddles.
Isn't Cuddles cute! He is such a great little guy to have around. He runs around all day going 'arf arf arf!' and does the most adorable thing with his flippers when you give him a fish.
Now, cuddles is soon going to shed his white coat. And he is costing me money. I am afraid that unless I raise $10,000 dollars in the next few weeks I will have no choice but to do this to cuddles:
OH MY GOD CUDDLES! LOOK OUT!!!
How can you save Cuddles you ask? Simple donate into my account through pay pay. Donate $100 or $200, and rest assured that you will spare Cuddles life for a few more days. If I make $10K by the end of the month, I will set cuddles free. I assure you, he is at no risk of being eaten by Polar Bears in the wild. That is just a crazy myth.
Donate today! Save poor cuddles.
Hello Seal fans,
I would like to introduce you to a friend of mine, his name is Cuddles.
Isn't Cuddles cute! He is such a great little guy to have around. He runs around all day going 'arf arf arf!' and does the most adorable thing with his flippers when you give him a fish.
Now, cuddles is soon going to shed his white coat. And he is costing me money. I am afraid that unless I raise $10,000 dollars in the next few weeks I will have no choice but to do this to cuddles:
OH MY GOD CUDDLES! LOOK OUT!!!
How can you save Cuddles you ask? Simple donate into my account through pay pay. Donate $100 or $200, and rest assured that you will spare Cuddles life for a few more days. If I make $10K by the end of the month, I will set cuddles free. I assure you, he is at no risk of being eaten by Polar Bears in the wild. That is just a crazy myth.
Donate today! Save poor cuddles.
- Reaction score
- 0
- Points
- 210
rant on....
How about the fact that the little f***ers have increased the incidence of cod worm to the point that even if we had a sustainable damn cod fishery, no-one would eat it 'cause of the infestation....
(Rant off....)
Now - there actually is some decent science showing the correlation between harp seals, the stoppage in the seal harvest, and an increase in cod worm! neat eh? Therefore the development of a wide area, gasoline-propelled, diesel fed, commie-eatin', granola crunching, tree-smashing, Exxon Valdez of a machine to scoop up and skin Harry the harp seal is much to be desired!
heh heh >
How about the fact that the little f***ers have increased the incidence of cod worm to the point that even if we had a sustainable damn cod fishery, no-one would eat it 'cause of the infestation....
(Rant off....)
Now - there actually is some decent science showing the correlation between harp seals, the stoppage in the seal harvest, and an increase in cod worm! neat eh? Therefore the development of a wide area, gasoline-propelled, diesel fed, commie-eatin', granola crunching, tree-smashing, Exxon Valdez of a machine to scoop up and skin Harry the harp seal is much to be desired!
heh heh >
