Badmike wrote:My favorite is the "free range" proponents that somehow think it's much better to butcher and consume an animal if he's had a life running around a fenced in yard.  The anthomorphizing of animals (something which I blame Disney for) had gotten ridiculous...a free range chicken doesn't "know" they have it any better than one who lives and dies in a chicken factory.  But it makes us feel better to think this chicken got to peck around in the dirt for a few hours a day.

Not sure I follow your logic here. The free-range animal doesn't know what confined animals feel, but so what? The relevant experience is that of the permanently confined animal, & in that case its own preference [not ours] is clear.

Anthropomorphism has nothing to do with it either. Both humans & animals find permanent confinement unpleasant. We would have to project the experience of humans onto animals to make it anthropomorphic.

Of course, the ultimate free-range animals are those which are hunted, & for some inexplicable reason, animal rights activists are often not pro-hunting.

Deadlord39 wrote:As long as they taste good with potatoes and stuffing, I could give a shit if they raise them on the moon.

Overly-confined animals have poor physical development, resulting in poor-quality meat, while overcrowding leads to contagious infections & to the release of stress hormones, which make it taste bad. I'd imagine animals raised with the low gravity of the Moon would muscle development problems as well.

sauromatian wrote:
Not sure I follow your logic here. The free-range animal doesn't know what confined animals feel, but so what? The relevant experience is that of the permanently confined animal, & in that case its own preference [not ours] is clear.

Anthropomorphism has nothing to do with it either. Both humans & animals find permanent confinement unpleasant. We would have to project the experience of humans onto animals to make it anthropomorphic.

Of course, the ultimate free-range animals are those which are hunted, & for some inexplicable reason, animal rights activists are often not pro-hunting.

Well, a couple of points.  First of all, the words "free range" are meant to convey some sort of warm-fuzzy to the Animals Have Feeling crowd, who get a mental picture of some farm in the boonies with a pond, a couple of kids with fishing poles, and maybe a dog or two rolling in the dirt as said chickens "explore the wilderness".  Nothing could be farther from the truth. Consumer Reports did an in depth investigation of "Free Range" animals a few years back, and not to bore you with all the details, but below are all the differences between "free range" animals and those raised in captivity:

Free range animals MUST have a door to their pen open for one hour a day so they can go outside if they feel like it

That's pretty much it. There's no regulation that the people running the animal farms have to actually PROVIDE  a farm or a large area, or even make the chickens leave the coop....as a matter of fact, they can have a fence around the chicken coop.  The chicken's can stay inside all day, every day, of their life, and they are considered "free range".  In other words, "Free Range" is a nonsense word used to make liberals/greenies feel ok about eating meat "Well, honey, we are having a delicious buffalo chicken sandwich but I feel much better knowing the chicken lived a full life before he was butchered, not like those poor "factory" chickens, please pass the wing sauce...."

And don't get me started on "organic" vegetables....

Anthromorphism comes in when we expect one of the stupidest of god's creatures, the pea brained sized chicken, to appreciate whether or not he has it better than any other chicken in the world.  Whether or not a chicken (or fish, for that matter) even cares about anything beyond eating and crapping is impossible to determine.  I've know a few cows, and horses, and even pigs, who I agree might be upset at certain aspects of their confinement. A chicken?  You might as well care whether or not an ant feels pain when we fire a blast of raid at an anthill....

And your ironic comments about hunting vis a vis free range are noted and I've also seen the inconsistency there "It's more humane for a deer to be stalked, attacked, and torn to pieces, then be eaten alive by a cougar, than for any evil hunter to end his life with one well placed bullet then actually use the meat to feed his family...barbarian!!!"

Mike B.

Apparently, my comment was so good I needed to post it twice.

I wonder who floated the idea that America is falling behind in space technology and innovation?

Was that part of the TV series, When We Left Earth?

In some quarters of American politics it is currently politically expedient to put down anything America is doing.  Listening to the news, one would think that America is on the brink of total collapse or a giant Jerry Springer brawl.

Whose idea was it that NASA is now the retarded cousin in the family of space programs?

sauromatian wrote:Overly-confined animals have poor physical development, resulting in poor-quality meat, while overcrowding leads to contagious infections & to the release of stress hormones, which make it taste bad.

Exactly.  Free range chicken eggs have little to do with touchy-feely animal rights issues for many buyers, and more to do with the product tasting better and being healthier.  Ditto for organic vegetables and fruits, do you really want to consume the pesticide that kills the weevils?  The old adage that you are what you eat has some truth.  There are not many consumer choices more important that what you buy (or grow) to eat for yourself and your family.  Unfortunately, we're all dealt a good or bad hand genetically for health, but we can ameliorate that hand to some extent with our eating habits and practices, and exercise (hit that treadmill!).  Bon appetit!
Side note: Shooting and killing a deer, duck or goose without eating it is unsportsmanlike.  At least give it a weapon to even the sides if you're not even going to do the honor of eating it.  

FormCritic wrote:Whose idea was it that NASA is now the retarded cousin in the family of space programs?

On this thread, or in general? The last major innovation in US manned spaceflight, the shuttle, has always been problematic. It was originally conceived in the 1970s as needing less booster support than it did, so it is a half-assed version of what it was supposed to be. The other big effort of the 70s, Skylab, was a non-success outright.

It is a commercial flop, costing more to send cargo into orbit than unmanned rockets, & more to send up people than Soyuz. It's big success has been as a heavy lifter, carrying larger cargo than anything the Russians have, & thus has helped construct the space station.

However, even in that regard it is becoming obsolete. The European ATV heavy lifter is now in operation, & is meant to replace the shuttle's capabilities. Space tourism has relied on the Soyuz, which requires less training to ride & is less physically demanding than the shuttles [Soyuz is supposed to be a more comfortable ride, which is pretty ironic].

As we get closer to the shuttle program's retirement date, you have to ask, why are we no longer building them? Why are we relying on unmanned rockets & Soyuz? Why are designs for future systems going back to the 1960s Apollo program & von Braun's idea of assembling large systems in orbit?

The inevitable conclusion is that the shuttle was not as successful as we would have liked. When a system gets mothballed & replaced with something very different, it ultimately cannot be considered a success. If the shuttle were truly successful, it should have been replaced by an improved shuttle. If we do consider it successful, then the failure to stick with it is even more damning in implication towards the overall space program.

The ultimate reason to consider the US program a 'retarded cousin' is the present state of things. The shuttles are set for retirement without having a replacement. There are nebulous designs for a new disposable capsule, but we all know how those pie-in-the-sky aspirations go. We are set to become a nation without a manned space program, a situation that will last for at least a decade if not more.

mandalaymoon wrote:
... Free range chicken eggs have little to do with touchy-feely animal rights issues for many buyers, and more to do with the product tasting better and being healthier.  Ditto for organic vegetables and fruits, do you really want to consume the pesticide that kills the weevils?  The old adage that you are what you eat has some truth.  There are not many consumer choices more important that what you buy (or grow) to eat for yourself and your family.  Unfortunately, we're all dealt a good or bad hand genetically for health, but we can ameliorate that hand to some extent with our eating habits and practices, and exercise (hit that treadmill!).  Bon appetit!  ....

Absolutely - compare a free range bird that has run about and been fed well with a minimum of chemicals, to a cheap battery reared, antibiotic-pumped, fast-growth chicken and you are almost talking about different animals.  The taste (and presumably the benefit to you) are miles apart.  Same with hydroponic factory-farmed vegetables and fresh local (often organic) produce, completely different. (...am getting hungry typing this now)

I love good food, and luckily in the UK, we seem to be getting the  message that the quality of your food is more important than the quantity.  Something which seems not have been forgotten in many other European countries.

mandalaymoon wrote:
Exactly.  Free range chicken eggs have little to do with touchy-feely animal rights issues for many buyers, and more to do with the product tasting better and being healthier.  Ditto for organic vegetables and fruits, do you really want to consume the pesticide that kills the weevils?  The old adage that you are what you eat has some truth.  There are not many consumer choices more important that what you buy (or grow) to eat for yourself and your family.  Unfortunately, we're all dealt a good or bad hand genetically for health, but we can ameliorate that hand to some extent with our eating habits and practices, and exercise (hit that treadmill!).  Bon appetit!
Side note: Shooting and killing a deer, duck or goose without eating it is unsportsmanlike.  At least give it a weapon to even the sides if you're not even going to do the honor of eating it.  

Honestly I can't discern any different taste in free range or "regular" meat (or eggs for that matter, which I've tried)...maybe I've just never been given an exceptionally yummy free range chicken.  It's all in the sauce (or covering) anyway....and in these tough economic times I can't afford to pay twice as much for my vittles.

As for pesticide, I typically wash my fruits and veggies thoroughly anyway.  My veggies from my garden taste better than store bought, but that's usually just because they are fresher (from my garden to my table in the same day!).  Once again I don't notice any difference, except often non-organic is healthier looking and costs half as much.  

Don't want to bog down but personally i think the entire idea of organic grown and free range is a bit of a scam.  It's a mechanism for liberal/greenies to feel good about themselves by paying more (self flaggelation) and patting themselves on the back that they have made a "healthy" choice for their family, when there is no concrete proof organic produce is any healthier.  There have already been organic vegetable frauds in the UK, Canada and the US in the last few years simply because almost anyone can label their produce "organic" with absolutely no overseeing (technically everything from my garden is organic) and since differences are impossible to discern unscrupulous farmers get away with it. Save your money, but the regular stuff, and use the savings to buy a orange B3 or something...

Mike B.

Badmike wrote:I say dip them in pesticide, spray them with fast growing fertilizer and chemicals, and kill all those nasty little bugs, my intestines will sort it all out....

I would tend to agree in regards organic veggies, but if you can indulge me on one more point over free-range livestock-

Occasionally one of my clients in publishing sends me to their home office in Iowa City. It's a rural area, beautiful surroundings, but the whole region smells terrible. This is particularly true of the park surrounding a reservoir, which is supposed to be a get-away from the grime of the city but smells even worse.

The problem is the hog lagoons. When animals are kept in massive quantity in a small space, their feces becomes concentrated too, producing some really noxious fumes. With the recent floods, all of it has been washed everywhere.

This was not a problem when a given number of animals were kept in open spaces, with enough ground to absorb it. You don't have to be a hippy to hate the sewer smell everywhere, believe me.