HighestWelfare.Humane.Assured.GoodPractices.Vegetarian. Regenerative.Flexitarian.Lies...
What is the difference between No Welfare, High Welfare, and Highest Welfare when they all require animals to die? Only human comfort, NONE protect the actual animals. The most humane, ethical, and honest Webster-defined "welfare" is NOT exploiting animals - not using, not wearing, not eating, not killing - animals. The only meaningful position is vegan, everything else is just how humans euphemize animals' required suffering and violent deaths: no human exploits animals because they honestly believe that NOT exploiting animals is UNethical or INhumane.
Simulposted with Dog News Examiner
Certain dog stories so unpleasant that they are difficult to share. However, some stories are so important that they must be shared.
On June 23, 2010, city animal control was called to the residence of Charles Bell, where they discovered the dead body of a dog that had been left in a crate in the sun for two miserable, long days. The dog had been left in the locked crate with no food, no water, and most importantly, no shade. The temperatures were in excess of 100 degrees.
It is nearly impossible to comprehend the suffering that this poor dog endured as she lay in the intense heat with no means to cool her parched body. Apparently someone had asked the owner if the dog could be moved to the shade and he (Charles Bell) refused.
There are photos showing a kennel enclosure right next to the deceased dog’s wire crate. The kennel enclosure had a tarp on the top for shade, and a bucket full of water. The now deceased dog had to look at this kennel enclosure (that could have saved her life) as she lamented in the wire crate with no relief for her suffering. It appears that the dog was intentionally being made to suffer in the most inhumane manner possible.
About us, so there will be no mistake …
Condemned for disease and death due to heat exhaustion and wounds, these unfortunate animals could be considered fortunate for not being subjected to inadequate stunning methods and "humane" slaughter which would have eviscerated and skinned them while still conscious.
Our Compass’ mission and beliefs are clearly established not only in our postings, but also in our About section. We will entertain opposing views, especially in the context of a respectful exchange of ideas, the desire for additional information, and in attempts of aspiration to veganism and an embracing of animal and human rights. We understand the incipient pervasion of ideas, thoughts, and expert understandings, and we welcome both the eager and learned responses to our publishing and goals. No person should ever feel limited, ashamed, or hesitant, we will always provide what we can in the spirit of constructive dialogue and learning. We are not experts, though, we continuously learn as well, the possession of knowledge is fluid and flexible, ideas evolve, information is metamorphic, and we all benefit from an unending pursuit of truth and justice.
However, we have decided that, in the interest of time and fairness, Our Compass will no longer accept lengthy missives and verbose declarations of why it is “okay” to continually consume meat and dairy, or why it is permissible to endorse the holocaust of non-human animals based on deliberate but needless human animal desires. And we will no longer respond to self-absorbed rhetoric that does nothing but attempt to suppress the adversity to such indignity and horror. We care not for your conditions, your beliefs, your established rituals of animal bloodletting, your ideas of therapeutic diets that promote a morally corrupt industry that murders 60 billion animals per year. If people feel the administrators of Our Compass are “bitches”, or that we are unsympathetic, or that we are closeminded and righteous, then so be it, we don’t falter at these blatant “criticisms”. Label us however you may want, we would have it no other way. We deflect your judgments and condemnations, we would never want a mass murderer to embrace us with joy and respect. Would you want Hitler to love you? Does the thought of Ted Bundy being a close friend excite you? We are animal rights activists who will not endorse your brutal dietary decision or accept your pithy reasoning.
Diet is not a right, it is a choice, and your choices have consequences; why you would fault us for not approving your contribution to agony and murder completely confounds me: if we gave you permission and approval, how would the animals benefit? Would their lives be less exploited or less painful, their emotional disturbance and suffering diminished, their existences more appreciated and empathized? Indeed, would our support of your dietary indulgence prove less conflicting for the animals, or would it, instead, prove less conflicting for you? Anthropocentrism is the prejudicial view of humans as supreme, relegating all others to products, a commodification of sentience to excuse the biased perception of human power at the expense of life. And it is immoral, unforgivable, and dangerous. The route to slaughterhouses and factory farms is not only physically obstructed, but it is also hindered with emotional barriers as well, and that is why you demand our support: to limit those barriers with social approval. The fact that you question your diet via projections on us for support of such may be beneficial, though. Embrace that question and force its answer with introspection and deliberation, and realize those barriers are your conscience.
Animals Asia Foundation has secured the release of five endangered moon bears from an illegal bile farm in Vietnam’s scenic Ha Long Bay after three years of campaigning. The five are among 24 bears that have been the subject of an international campaign spearheaded by Animals Asia and supported by 13 foreign embassies and other animal welfare and conservation groups after the farm holding them was raided by police.
Vietnam’s Environmental Police and the local Ha Long Police raided the Viet Thai Bear Farm at Dai Yen, outside Ha Long City, Quang Ninh Province on 2 October last year and caught employees extracting and selling bear bile “red-handed” to Korean tourists. Five workers and two South Koreans, who had been visiting the farm on an organised tour, were detained for questioning. Bile extraction equipment and more than 200 vials containing freshly extracted bear bile were confiscated in the raid. The 24 bears in question had no proof of origin and no microchips as required by law.
Another Rescue: Moon bear rescue – Shandong province, China – Weihai – 19 April 2010
The Delhi High Court has said that child marriage violates human rights and restrained a minor girl and her forty-year-old husband from consummating the marriage till she attains the age of majority.
Deviating from earlier decisions of the court when the minor brides were allowed to reside with their husbands, a bench headed by Justice A K Sikri said that the 17-year-old bride would be staying with her parents and not with her spouse.”In actuality, a child marriage is a violation of Human Rights, compromising the development of girls and often resulting in early pregnancy and social isolation, with little education and poor vocational training reinforcing the gendered nature of poverty,” the court said.
Spotlight on … Snakes, Snakes Need Love, Too!
Snakes have existed on Earth for over 100 million years, and yet today, the very existence of many snake species is threatened by their most vicious predator – human beings. Hundreds of snake species are in desperate need of conservation. Other species are subjected to many forms of human induced cruelty and exploitation.
Matt Ellerbeck (aka Snake Man) is an animal rights activist and conservationist who focuses his advocacy on snakes. Matt’s mission is to help contribute to the recovery of imperiled snake populations by providing educational presentations, raising awareness of the issues snakes face, standing up for their rights, running conservation projects, and promoting snake advocacy, preservation, and stewardship.
Matt strongly promotes the abolition of snakes in the pet trade, the skin trade, as use for food, for fashion, and all other practices which inflict pain and suffering upon them or exploit them.
It is Matt’s hope that his work will help alleviate people’s fears and hatred of snakes, and that this in turn, will help decrease the number of snakes directly persecuted by people.
YouTube sssssssnakeman’s Channel
If you have a Facebook account, join Matt’s Facebook Snake Conservation 101 Group
Devour the Earth
There were approximately 6.5 billion people living on earth in 2008, this number is expected to rise to 9 billion by 2050 and as the world’s population continues to grow, our requirement for food will also increase. With dwindling resources and an already increasing number of undernourished people in the world, the effects could be devastating. Worldwide food production requires around 30% of the total soil available, 20% of fossil fuel energy and a major part of the fresh water flow. Raising cattle is one of the most damaging components of agriculture. They cause the most environmental damage of any non-human species through over-grazing, soil erosion, desertification, tropical deforestation for ranches and growing of soya for their feed, in addition to their gaseous emissions and manure products.
Meat and seafood are the two most rapidly growing ingredients in the global diet and also two of the most costly in resource use. In 2006, 276 million tonnes of chicken, pork, beef and other meat were produced, 4 times as much as in 1961. On average, each person eats twice as much meat as back then (43kgs). The fishing industry harvested 141 million tonnes of seafood globally in 2005, 8 times as much as in 1950.
Let Them Wear the Veil
The Daily Beast
By Roja Heydarpour
France voted to ban it, and a handful of other European countries are considering the same. Iranian Roja Heydarpour on how the law drives conservative Muslim women back into their homes…
This week, the French came one step closer to enacting a law that’s supposed to set women free but which will, in effect, imprison women in their own homes. The bill making its way through the French Parliament would ban women from wearing full veils in public, effectively driving thousands of women inside.
For the veiled women who either won’t or can’t be seen in public with their hair and face uncovered, Paris will come to resemble Kabul, if the ban is passed this fall. In some ways, living in Paris will be even worse. At least in Afghanistan, women can leave the house if accompanied by a man.
Putting aside the fact that some of these women may feel more comfortable behind the veil, the law would hurt even those who aren’t.
In France, we’re talking about a law that would affect about 2,000 women. But the president has found it worthy of his time and attention, and tempers are—predictably—flaring.
France, of course, is just the latest European country where politicians are trying to criminalize the veil in public. Other European countries have aggressively rallied to ban what they consider a symbol of oppression.
“The full veil is a walking coffin, a muzzle,” said one French male MP last week.
Once used for medical experimentation, 55-monkeys now have a new home.
The four to six- year-old Java macaque monkeys were packed up into crates on Thursday destined for the likes of New Castle, Oklahoma and South Texas.
Saturday 25 of those long tailed monkeys arrived at the Primarily Primates reserve near Leon Springs.
The monkeys had been housed in the Aniclin Preclinical Services lab owned by Azopharma until the lab went into receivership and a court ordered the monkeys released to sanctuaries.
“It’s an extraordinary rescue situation with many young primates, multiple destinations, unprecedented collaborations, and new enclosures being built and fitted quickly at four sites,” said Priscilla Feral, president of Primarily Primates. “We call it Operation Monkey Trek.”
Next, 15 of the monkeys will be delivered to Born Free USA Primate Sanctuary in Dilley, Texas.
A team of volunteers and vets checked out each monkey before releasing them into their new homes.
Woman Dies, Ignored, on Waiting Room Floor
Newser.comBrooklyn hospital staff overlooks ER patient for over an hour: recently uncovered surveillance footage shows a woman collapsing in a Brooklyn psychiatric hospital, then lying on the floor for more than an hour while hospital staff ignored her. Esmin Green, 49, had been waiting for treatment for almost 24 hours when she collapsed at 5:32am and lay convulsing on the floor. She stopped moving at 6:07am, and was found dead at 6:35.
1,700-mile journey to freedom will reach Oklahoma sanctuary today, then on to Texas sanctuaries Friday night and Saturday….
In Defense of Animals (IDA), an international animal protection and rescue organization, is transporting 55 rescued long-tailed macaque monkeys from an insolvent toxicology laboratory in Oxford, New Jersey. Continuing a journey that began yesterday, IDA will deliver eight of the monkeys to their new home at Mindy’s Memory Sanctuary in Newcastle, Oklahoma today. The transport will continue with three more stops in Texas tonight and Saturday at Wildlife Rescue and Rehabilitation, Primarily Primates, and Born Free USA primate sanctuaries. IDA coordinated their 1,700-mile journey, which is utilizing a specialized animal transport service.
They die piece by piece : Investigation reveals rampant cruelty in industrial slaughterhouses
There is no relevance to morality when the latter is revered with no consideration to the former: life takes precedence over murder, anything else is blatant denial, but no matter how much you deny it, the animals suffer the depraved, bloody consequences of your comfortable conformity.
Editor’s Note: Although Temple Grandin is referenced as an expert in the “humane” treatment of animals, OC adamantly disagrees with such a distinction and believes Ms. Grandin has done more to harm than to help by fostering the inaccurate, immoral idea that animals can be killed humanely. No animal, human or non-human, can be characterized as treated humanely if killed violently, exploitively. The only humane observance is veganism; if you think otherwise, then you have no problem with the deliberate, premature, and bloody murder of human animals as long as they get knocked in the head 50 times out of 100.
Ten billion animals are killed annually for food, just in the United States, and that figure does not include marine, testing, and fur victims. Ten billion. There are no humane standards; the Animal Welfare Act specifically EXCLUDES animals commodified for food. Think about that.
Please understand that the animals about whom you may care – cats and dogs – are no different than animals you eat. Please be vegan. We are more than thrilled to help in any manner necessary, you need only ask, or scroll to the end for resources and links to information and free guides.
From The Washington Post
By Joby Warrick, Washington Post Staff Writer
In the blink of an eye: A secret video made by a worker at a meatpacking plant in Pasco, Wash., showed that this steer, which supposedly had been stunned, had blinking reflexes, indicating it was still conscious.
It takes 25 minutes to turn a live steer into steak at the modern slaughterhouse where Ramon Moreno works. For 20 years, his post was “second-legger,” a job that entails cutting hocks off carcasses as they whirl past at a rate of 309 an hour.
The cattle were supposed to be dead before they got to Moreno. But too often they weren’t.
“They blink. They make noises,” he said softly. “The head moves, the eyes are wide and looking around.” Still Moreno would cut. On bad days, he says, dozens of animals reached his station clearly alive and conscious. Some would survive as far as the tail cutter, the belly ripper, the hide puller. “They die,” said Moreno, “piece by piece.”
Records from 1997 and 1998 describe hogs that were walking and squealing after being stunned as many as four times.
Under a 23-year-old federal law, slaughtered cattle and hogs first must be “stunned” — rendered insensible to pain — with a blow to the head or an electric shock. But at overtaxed plants, the law is sometimes broken, with cruel consequences for animals as well as workers. Enforcement records, interviews, videos and worker affidavits describe repeated violations of the Humane Slaughter Act at dozens of slaughterhouses, ranging from the smallest, custom butcheries to modern, automated es-tablishments such as the sprawling IBP Inc. plant here where Moreno works.
“In plants all over the United States, this happens on a daily basis,” said Lester Friedlander, a veterinarian and formerly chief government inspector at a Pennsylvania hamburger plant. “I’ve seen it happen. And I’ve talked to other veterinarians. They feel it’s out of control.”
The U.S. Department of Agriculture oversees the treatment of animals in meat plants, but enforcement of the law varies dramatically. While a few plants have been forced to halt production for a few hours because of alleged animal cruelty, such sanctions are rare.
Simulposted with Farm Sanctuary
Farm Sanctuary President and Co-founder Gene Baur: “It is nothing short of a dereliction of duty for a professional trained to provide medical care to animals to support practices such as kicking them and to say that it is to the benefit of the animals.”
On Monday, an Ohio grand jury decided to clear Gary Conklin, owner of Conklin Dairy Cattle Sales LLC, of criminal charges in connection with the abuse of cows on his farm. In a disturbing video distributed worldwide in May, Mr. Conklin is shown kicking a “downed” cow too weak to stand by herself. According to a statement given to the media by the prosecutor in the case, four large animal veterinarians told law enforcement officials that “delivering a sharp blow” to a sick or weak animal is necessary in order to avoid risk of “injury and death” and is standard practice in the dairy industry as an “entirely appropriate” means to get non-ambulatory animals to move.
Today, Gene Baur, president and co-founder of Farm Sanctuary, the nation’s leading farm animal protection organization, issued the following statement in response to the clearing of Gary Conklin of criminal charges:
The Huffington Post
By Geoffrey Dunn
Supporters of Joe Miller – the U.S. Senate candidate supported by Sarah Palin in Alaska – carried assault rifles and wore open side arms during a festive community parade this week, while young children marched alongside them.
Miller is running in the GOP primary against incumbent Republican US Senator Lisa Murkowski, a far more popular figure in Alaska these days than Palin, who quit her position as governor a year ago amidst a series of ethics scandals and an impending override of her federal stimulus veto.
Footage of the event, located on Youtube and at the website of noted Alaska blogger Andrew Halcro, shows a handful of potbellied Miller supporters behind a black Humvee openly brandishing weapons at the Bear Paw Festival, a popular community celebration held annually in Eagle River and Chugiak (located north of Anchorage along the Old Glenn Highway on the way to the Palins’ home town of Wasilla). The five-day festival includes a “Teddy Bear Picnic,” barbecues, music and a historical fair.
Until Americans stop torturing and murdering God’s creatures by the millions every day using any number of methods of hideous cruelty, society and the earth’s environment will continue to suffer the unfortunate consequences that go with supporting or committing these sick crimes, says author Arthur Poletti.
The United Nations Food & Agriculture Organization issued a stunning report about global warming on November 29th that a large number of people throughout the world need to know about, says Arthur Poletti, author of God Does Not Eat Meat.
Some of the highlights of that report are as follows:
Livestock production is at the heart of almost every environmental catastrophe: rain forest destruction, spreading deserts, loss of fresh water, air and water pollution, acid rain and soil erosion and is also responsible for
- – More climate change gases than all the motor vehicles in the world
- – 70 percent of the Amazon deforestation
- – 64 percent of all the acid rain-producing ammonia
- – 15 out of the 24 vast global ecosystems that are in decline can be attributed to livestock
For the full United Nations Food & Agriculture Organization report, click on http://www.fao.org/newsroom/en/news/2006/1000448/index.html which reveals God’s first commission on the sixth day of creation, when God had created everything including land animals and humans, and those who read and consider the merits of the following information, will understand why God – who is the supreme symbol of kindness, life, and love – unequivocally wants factory farms and slaughterhouses to close,” Poletti says.
Eleven Reasons to Stop Eating Dairy
By Michelle Schoffro Cook
Care2
Milk and dairy products are not the health foods we’ve been told they are. Here are 11 reasons to stop consuming them:
1. Cow’s milk is intended for baby cows. We’re the only species (other than those we are domesticating) that drinks milk after infancy. And, we’re definitely the only ones drinking the milk of a different species.
2. Hormones. Not only are the naturally-present hormones in cow’s milk stronger than human hormones, the animals are routinely given steroids and other hormones to plump them up and increase milk production. These hormones can negatively impact humans’ delicate hormonal balance.
3. Most cows are fed inappropriate food. Commercial feed for cows contains all sorts of ingredients that include: genetically-modified (GM) corn, GM soy, animal products, chicken manure, cottonseed, pesticides, and antibiotics.
4. Dairy products, when metabolized, are acid-forming. Our bodies are constantly striving for biochemical balance to keep our blood at 7.365 pH. Eating excessive acid-forming products can cause our bodies to overuse some of its acid-balancing mechanisms, one of which is the bones. Alkaline calcium is stored in the bones and released to combat excessive acidity in the body. Over time, bones can become fragile.
Our Compass 