An animal rights group called Tuesday for a North American theme park operator to cancel a competition in which people will try to break the world cockroach-eating record.
Theme park operator Six Flags Inc, based in New York, is staging the contest as part of a promotion leading up to Halloween in which it is also offering customers free entry or line-jumping advantages if they eat a live Madagascar hissing cockroach.
The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) said it had been flooded with calls from children, adults and even anonymous employees of Six Flags opposing the record-breaking contest and the overall promotion.
“Insects do not deserve to be eaten alive especially for a gratuitous marketing gimmick,” PETA spokeswoman Jackie Vergerio told Reuters.
Competitors will try to break the current world record, which is held by Ken Edwards of Derbyshire, England, who devoured 36 Madagascar hissing cockroaches in one minute in 2001.
Six Flags spokesman James Taylor said the only complaints the company had received were from people who did not have the opportunity to sign up and eat a cockroach because only 12 of its 30 parks in the United States, Canada, and Mexico were participating in the promotion.
Of course, sooner or later, guess who ends up eating whom?
They’re INSECTS, for Christ’s sake.
I think these insects need sensitivity training. I thought PETA meant:
People
Eating
Treated (Marinated)
Animals
🙂
Oh well, at least the cock roaches can sleep safely for another day.
A contest like this appeals to those from
People
Eating
Tasty
Animals
If God didn’t want us to eat animals, why did he make them out of meat?
I believe that the shameless promoter should be forced to eat cockroaches.
AND HOW in nature do you Think these creatures get Eaten??
Birds love them, even Chickens love them…
Well, that’s one way to take care of cockroach infestation I guess. 🙂
#5: Humans are made of meat too though so what does THAT say? 🙂
I think you’ll find PETA has complete support for all animals being ripped apart while they are alive and mutilated with unspeakable suffering. As long as it is in the wild and not quickly by people. Unless they are planning a protest march I don’t know about.
RBG
This is not a simple question. Many people eat other animals regularly. Is it right to kill another animal for any reason? I read an interesting post this morning at http://www.changeeverything.ca/if_we_start_with_little_bugs
it made me think twice.
Why stop at bugs? what about plants? dont they have a right to life?
GIVE PEAS A CHANCE!!!!
Can we still step on them? In any case, as a species, they will long outlast the Humans.
PETA is quite simply a political activist group and they are staffed with some very bright people. When they point out that we don’t need to spray rabbit’s eyes with hairspray to know that it burns, they are right. Cosmetics, women’s fashions, trophies on walls… We do harm to animals for no good reason, and someone should stand up and rail against that… But animals are one of those things that bring the crazies out of the woodwork.
Like the zoological version of Star Trek nerds, much of the rank and file are obsessive zealots who allow an overblown sense of compassion trump their ability to engage in rational dialog.
Yes. Fur is murder. But meat is not. Meat is food. We eat food. We need food. If you believe that how we treat the living creatures that inhabit the planet we are the stewards of is a measure of our worth and our humanity, then join PETA and work from within to bring this noble cause back from the edge. PETA is an important political entity desperately in search of a rational voice.
#11 http://www.changeeverything.ca/if_we_start_with_little_bugs
Can I also use this site to align my chakra? This hippy dippy claptrap from liberals on the edge is why us pragmatic mainstream liberals get laughed at. Put your Birkenstocks in the closet and put on a suit.
These are cockroaches. Do you know what they are thinking? I do. They aren’t thinking. They don’t have brains. They have a bundle of nerves and they react to everything by simple responses to stimuli. They aren’t aware. They don’t grieve over loss or feel pride in their children. They are more like plants than animals. And when I see one in my home, I destroy it and then go on a one man crusade to hunt down the 10,000 more hiding in the dark and destroy them as well. As we all should.
I don’t believe zoos should keep roaches on display or try and brainwash people into thinking they are beniegn happy little creatures. They should only have them if they are researching more effective ways to kill them.
Eating them is nasty and inhuman and should be punished because we should punish stupidity if only to scare other stupid people into getting smarter. Roaches, in all forms, must die. Roaches prove there is no God because God doesn’t make mistakes and these horrid creatures are definately a mistake.
Save the owls. Save the rare species of newt near the proposed site of the new dam. Save elephants, lions, osteriches, puppies, tree frogs, lizards, hummingbirds, earthworms, jellyfish, etc…
BUT THE COCKROACH IS THE ENEMY OF MAN AND ITS EXTERMINATION MUST BE OUR UNITED GOAL
OFTLO. Thank You! That is exactly how I feel. You stated it well.
14. “Yes. Fur is murder.”
Ahhhh, but: It’s a well know fact that if you scrape all the hair off the skin, then it’s ok to wear.
RBG
17. I think the rational is that we eat the cow’s meat to live, so killing the cow has a good purpose in a way. Throwing out the cow’s skin would be a waste, so leather isn’t murder.
On the other hand I think that when a fox fur coat is made they throw out the rest of the fox, so the only purpose of killing the fox is for a coat.
Could be wrong, but I believe thats why leather is accepted and fur is not.
#18 – He knows that. He’s just a right wing hardliner, so it’s his job to hassle me… Just as it is my job to hassle him…
But you are right. But of course there are a lot of anti-leather folks too. Of course it’s hard to be anti-leather if you are pro warm juicy rare steak. The anti folks tend to be anemic and pasty militant vegans.
But I’ve learned that while eating lunch with those folks can be a pain, they are in fact very good hackysac players and you can always count on them to get tickets to the good music festivals.
PETA is a worthless organization. Much like today’s sorry version of the GOP, the authoritarian sociopaths in charge lure well-intentioned but gullible people with poor reasoning abilities into their web.
They kill most of the animals they take in (often after promising to find them homes); their VP, Mary Beth Sweetland has no problem trying to prevent other peoples’ illnesses from being addressed via animal research, but (like any egocentric authoritarian crackpot) she sees mothing wrong with treating her OWN diabetes with animal-derived insulin. & cetera, & cetera.
I’d personally like to take up a collection and send them to the African veldt, where they can explain up close and personal to the lions how it’s immoral for them to hunt, kill and eat gazelles – just f’rinstance…
Take a gander at their hypocrisy:
http://www.petakillsanimals.com
As per usual these, the only voices you hear are the extremist simpletons, who are, by virtue of their childish black-and-white thinking, wrong most of the time.
“All fur is bad.” “God put all animals here for us to do whatever we want with ’em.” “It’s OK to eat/kill/use any animal, since we’re the only lifeform that matters.” “It’s wrong for us to eat/kill/use any animal, since all lifeforms are alive, and therefore humans are no more valuable or important than roaches or bacteria.”
Frigging morons.
Mink and sable, nasty, vicious, smelly, cannibalistic bastards they are, happen to have pelts that make wonderfully warm, durable outerwear for humans, with high practical value as well as giving sensual and aesthetic satisfaction. Cats, on the other hand, are the highest form of life besides apes, monkeys and humans. (pace, Cetacea fanz) Killing a big cat (or a seal, FTM) for mere clothing is an abominable practice of morally defective people. (Actually, killing any cat (or dog) for any reason other than protecting an even higher lifeform from harm is unacceptably contemptuous of life and despicable.)
Food? We are carnivores. (Don’t believe it? Go check your teeth.) We have long bred certain plentiful, not-very-highly-evolved creatures such as poultry and cattle for use as human foodstuffs. That’s a far cry from the horrendously decadent practice of eating the brains of monkeys while they are alive and conscious.
Cats have a far, far greater right to life than do mink.
Monkeys have a far, far greater right to life than do chickens or cows.
Life and the creatures that possess it are one Hell of a lot more complex than “Don’t ever kill anything” or “Kill anything you want to, we’re superior.” The truth, as ever, lies between the ludicrous extremes.
So Sayeth The Ghoti
#20 –
Lauren the Ghoti has just spent several paragraphs rambling on and on with absolutist rhetoric about PETA is worthless this and something about monkeys that and who the hell knows….
Stop it.
I’m gonna be the one who rants like that. Find your own schtick 🙂
=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+
HEY! LOOK WHAT I FOUND!
http://www.helpinganimals.com/f-bushdisaster.asp
This is nutty… Left wing extremists from PETA are praising George W Bush for signing a law that, if I understand this right, protects dogs and cats from Hurricanes?!?!?!
=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+
Lauren… The idea of Peta isn’t worthless. Protecting animals from abuse is worthy. Its just that the kookoo factor needs to be tempered by rational minds.
Many rank and file PETA people are loonbats. They are socially awkward and thus get picked on growing up, turn to animals who are accepting of whatever crazy batbrain that takes them home from the store, and then they personify the animals and dehumanize other people… and it’s a pychiatrists jigsaw puzzle over there…
It’s a good idea to maintain safe and humane conditions for animals in factory farms. It’s a good idea to stop cosmetics testing. There is no real reason why in this day and age, any clothing needs real fur.
But pets are okay. And food is good. And Steve Irwin was a good guy. And I don’t need some shrill bitch screaming at me for eating a turkey sandwich. Jared lost a lot of weight that way and goddamnit I wanna look good in a swimsuit next year.
After NORMAL, PETA is my favorite crackpot club.
#21
Don’t forget that the majority of the Peta members are well educated urban women, I think they should follow the example of their leader and start spaying them bitches.
NORML (yoo-hoo, there’s no ‘A’ in there) – oh, yeah, I remember! Those crackpots who object to humans being incarcerated for recklessly endangering the lives and violating the rights of their fellow citizens by inhaling the product of burning vegetable matter!
Whatta buncha loonies, eh? You’d think from listening to ’em that people should actually be allowed to do something that harms no one!
Where do people get these flaky ideas?
Cockroaches I could tolerate watching others eat. One food that is absolutely disgusting is Japanese natto. When my ex or my kid is eating it, I have to literally leave the room.
http://tinyurl.com/y4kmhx
John, have u tried this? I take it you’ve been to Japan many times.
They kill most of the animals they take in (often after promising to find them homes); …
Comment by Lauren the Ghoti — 10/12/2006 @ 1:34 pm
OK, and can you link to a neutral source that claiming PETA kills the animals under its protection? I didn’t think so. Simply because that is simply an unwarranted attack on PETA. It doesn’t happen, it hasn’t happened, and I doubt it will happen. In short, its just some bull crap put out to discredit PETA.
We are carnivores. (Don’t believe it? Go check your teeth.)
Sorry, but you really are showing how rabid you can be. Humans are omnivores. Don’t believe it? Just check your own teeth. We have slicing front teeth and plant crushing back teeth. Carnivores have sharp pointed teeth to tear flesh.
BTW, your biased link is down. But try this one.
http://www.consumerdeception.com/
20. “As per usual these, the only voices you hear are the extremist simpletons, who are, by virtue of their childish black-and-white thinking, wrong most of the time.”
I hear ya, man.
18. Think PETA would go for letting us wear the fur of domestically raised meat animals? Like elk, bear, kangaroo, rabbit, zebra and such? Or using domestically-raised fox guts to feed endangered species or zoo animals?
RBG
peta-sucks.com? Yup, a message board will sure be reputable and unbiased. Have you checked out lauren-sucks.com?
furcommision.com has a lot of nasty tricks tried, but nothing suggesting PETA killed animals
nokillnow.com is another one of those “agenda” sites. Well financed, but there isn’t any hint of who they are. It seems all the links I tried led right back to the same site !!! A lot of smoke but no substance.
Sorry Lauren, but your sources just don’t meet the unbiased test. And before you continue with your crap, I don’t support PETA or its goals. I am only interested in the truth, and I don’t accept what you have presented as the truth. Your sites are impeachable, except to the ignorant who enjoy screaming rants.
Mr. Fusion:
Alas, my petit wiles have proven no match for your Logic-Free Reasoning©. My apologies for attempting to deceive with such transparent fabrications as ex-PETA members, shelter personnel, veterinarians, the print and broadcast media of two good-sized American cities and the police and courts of said cities, the state government records of VA and NC as well as the IRS, the names of individuals involved, with photographic evidence of their crimes – and of course the most bogus of all, CNN. All that work, fabricating all that stuff – utterly wasted. You see right through the whole pathetic sham.
Gad, Holmes, how do you do it??
When I arrived, had I not been distracted by your tres chic tinfoil beret, I would have noticed that you don’t merely drink the Kool-Aid, you get yours from an IV drip!
Oh, and one more thing…
I mistakenly said ‘carnivore’ when I meant to say ‘omnivore,’ so you win on a technicality. However the error is inconsequential, since it neither invalidates my point nor does it support yours.
You see, I was asserting that humans eat meat – not that we eat meat exclusively. So, whether I used the term carnivore or omnivore, my assertion still stands. Your attempt at refutation fails, since omnivores or carnivores, we are still not herbivores.
But thanks for playing, and Jay has some nice parting gifts for you…
#29, …the print and broadcast media of two good-sized American cities and the police and courts of said cities, the state government records of VA and NC as well as the IRS …
If only you could have linked to some “print or broadcast” media. Instead you linked to some totally biased, agenda driven, insanely screaming sites. While I did do some searching, I failed to find any neutral sites claiming PETA are animal killers. As I pointed out before, I do not support PETA. They are too far out on the fringe for my taste. Yet, I do not believe in slandering a group just because some screaming asshole, getting paid by a large animal feed conglomerate, starts several web sites spewing garbage. Until the veracity can be demonstrated then it still falls under the bull crap sign.
BTW, although we do eat a lot of meat, our bodies are more tuned towards a herbaceous diet then carnivorous diet. Our teeth are designed more for grinding plant matter. Our stomachs and intestines are designed for the long slow digestion of plant material. Carnivores, on the other hand have sharp teeth for tearing flesh and shorter intestines as it usually takes much less time to digest flesh.
Comments by Comment by Lauren the Ghoti in #27
But only a fool whose knowledge of computers stops at being able to turn on a PC and write a misspelled office memo in Wordpad would think that we’re anywhere near being able to model animal biology – “We don’t need to test on animals, we could use computer models!” People that pathetically clue-impaired cannot be reasoned with.
Did I say anything about this? I said cosmetic testing isn’t needed. And you know what? It isn’t. We are talking about lipstick, rougue, eyeliner, and hairspray, and if anything thinks it is important to torture animals so that vanity driven housewives in the suburbs can cover their age at the PTA meeting, then that person is simply wrong. I don’t give a damn how many billions annually the industry is. It is right to torture animals to manufacture cosmetics. If I can’t convince somebody that we shouldn’t do it because it is crual (and it is hard to magine what is inside the head of the guy who misses the crualty angle) then I can at least prove it isn’t important by pointing to the extensive high quality line of cruelty free make up on the market which exists exactly because many women don’t want to kill bunnies just to keep their hair still in the wind.
Medical testing is another ball game. Some testing is probably superflous, but by and large it serves a greater good. I’d like to see a cure for AIDS, cancer, diabetes, whooping cough, scurvey, spina bifida, Republicans, and genital herpes… so I am willing to accept that animals will be harmed in the testing of chemicals and drugs intented to help manage or eliminate major health problems.
PETA – not in theory, in reality – is a foul agglomeration of psychos and clowns.
It’s an absolute statement and a sweeping generality. I reject the notion out of hand and reject the notion that an organization with PETA’s general goals has no value…
Lucky Charms taste good (to children or people with bad taste) because there are a lot of oats and a few marshmellows. PETA is a box of Lucky Charms with a metric shit-ton of marshmellows and a handful of oats. That is its problem. That is the curse of many left leaning organizations.