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Thursday, June 18, 2009

PETA, Still Batshit Crazy After All These Years

I killed a mosquito.

Yes, I did. I admit it.

I saw it on my forearm and I was momentarily overwhelmed by the sheer bold audacity of the damned blood-sucking beast. I mean there is was, its little proboscis jammed into my flesh like a Exxon Oil rig, sucking out my lifeblood without so much as a ‘by your leave’ and my irritation at this affront momentarily overrode my humanity.

So I squashed it.

I did, I squashed it with great gusto.

She was damned near at full load too, so when I squashed her, blood splattered everywhere – like a suicide bomber in a blood bank or a satiated vampire dropped from a height onto concrete. Pop! Sploosh!

It made me gleeful, it did.

In fact, I may have cackled momentarily in glee, and then shouted at the Alaskan wilderness, Die, bug, die! with the same primal bloodlust displayed by Moonwatcher, that primitive man-ape in 2001 A Space Odyssey after he bludgeoned a leopard to death with the knurled thighbone of a dead antelope. Yes! Die, bug, die!

Then I flicked her crushed and crumpled carcass contemptuously away and onto the gravel of the drive and left her corpse as a warning to others of her kind - the way Romans used to line the Appian Way with the crucified bodies of criminals as a warning to those who would enter Rome with avarice in their hearts.

Yes, I killed a mosquito this morning and I am unrepentant.

In point of fact I’ve killed thousands of mosquitoes, and I intend to kill thousands more. Indeed I own a Mosquito Magnet(tm), a device specifically designed for the mass murder of mosquitoes on an industrial scale (speaking of which, I need to go empty that out and change the gas tank and attractant before I leave on vacation, don’t let me forget). In the shop I have an electric zapper that looks a lot like a tennis racket, if they play tennis in hell that is, except the “strings” are actually an electrically charged grid. When you wave it past a mosquito, the electric charge is transferred directly into the insect’s body with a satisfying sizzle and pop! and the smell of burning hair. I admit that sometimes I use this device on mosquitoes that aren’t even bothering me.

Oh yes, I have killed mosquitoes and I am unrepentant.

And just so you understand the full magnitude of my actions, the majority of mosquitoes that I’ve killed were pregnant females. Yes that’s right. Because you see, it is only the pregnant females who bite – the males I leave for ShopKat, who has eaten many of the slower ones, crunching their bodies between her sharp teeth with great gusto, legs projecting from either side of her muzzle and twitching as the creature is consumed alive – male mosquitoes are big, like a dragonfly.

Oh yes, yes, I have killed mosquitoes, and my cat has killed mosquitoes, and I am unrepentant and I encourage you to do the same.

I am a blood thirsty killer – just like my President, who during an interview with CNBC on Tuesday mercilessly murdered a hapless housefly in cold (blood? Ichor? Seriously what the hell do flies use for circulatory fluid?) before a startled and appalled nation.

I suppose it’s only a matter of time before the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals come for me too.

"We support compassion even for the most curious, smallest and least sympathetic animals," PETA spokesman Bruce Friedrich said Wednesday [in response to President Obama’s killing of a fly on national TV]. "We believe that people, where they can be compassionate, should be, for all animals."

Yes, PETA has condemned the President of the United States for killing a common housefly on national television. PETA is sending the White House a device called the Katcha Bug Humane Bug Catcher so that in the future the President can humanly (and ethically no doubt) capture the bug and release it unharmed into the wild, were it can go on spreading disease and pestilence and laying its little maggot babies in the open festering wounds of Washington’s poor.

Sound crazy?

You remember our last encounter with PETA, don’t you?

You haven’t even seen the half of it yet.

PETA has issued a call to rename fish… wait for it… waaaaaaaait for it… to Sea Kittens.

Yes, that’s right, PETA wants us to call fish sea kittens in an attempt to make the cold slimy creatures more adorable to humans.

"Fish not only have the same ability to feel pain as a dog or a cat, but they also communicate with one another," PETA’s Ashley Byrne says. "They have complex social interactions; they form bonds; they express affection by gently rubbing against one another."

Sea Kittens. See, because if we rebrand fish to sea kittens, well nobody would want to go fishing, right?

"Most parents would never dream of spending a weekend torturing kittens for fun with their families, but hooking a sea kitten through the mouth and dragging her through the water is the same as hooking a kitten through the mouth and dragging her behind your car," Byrne says.

You think I’m joking, don’t you?

I’m not.

Really, I’m not.

Sea Kittens.

What’s next?

Will we soon see flies rebranded as “Buzzy Buddies?”

Perhaps we should rename tapeworms “Poopshoot Pals?”

How about lice? “My Little Friends”, maybe?

Yeah.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got some Blood-Sucking Disease Infested Flying Alaskan Mosquitoes Fuzzy Air Bunnies to swat.

23 comments:

  1. PETA - People Engaging in Thick-skulled Actions.

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  2. I prefer my PETA - People Eating Tasty Animals.

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  3. Mmm... pan-seared sea kitten fillets with asparagus.... ::drool::

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  4. Reminds me I need to get the grill repaired before the weekend - I have some Range Rover (buffalo) burger and Sea Kitten (salmon) filet to incin-um broil over some white hot coals...

    The Sea Kitten I bludgeoned to death with a big ass rock 'cause I left my Sea Kitten Bat at home... The Rover is from the cooler at Fred's (where no animals are killed to satisfy my grilling habits) ::eyeroll::

    During the grilling process I plan on capturing and throwing into aforementioned white hot coals as many Fuzzy Air Bunnies as I can - and I'll laugh about it too...

    PETA - Panties Easily Twisted About

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  5. "they express affection by gently rubbing against one another."

    They're eating parasites off of each other.

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  6. Bu the mosquitoes are the only reason earth is protected by the universal council - they are an endangered species. (Lilo and Stitch)

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  7. I find it hard to believe that all 30k known extant fish species are affectionate by rubbing against each other.

    By the way, I'm personally responsible for killing several thousand fish babies. Also hundreds of thousands of baby crabs, shrimp, and various sundry other things that were next to the baby fish at the time. (There was also one time we caught some grownup shrimp; I had them with butter a few days later...)

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  8. All mosquitoes must die. Soon.

    I was at my aunt's after my grandma's funeral recently, and I couldn't spend time with some of the family because they insisted upon hanging out on the back porch, and were apparently were immune to the vast bloodsucking cloud of the damn things that would attack me.

    And why are animals more worthy of respect as living beings than plants? Or single-celled creatures? Or fungus?

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  9. Because they're fuzzy and cute of course. ;)

    Me, I eat everything equally.

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  10. Eric, I'm with you...

    What I loved about the President was he was so casual about the deed, then bragged about it!! Showed it off so the cameraman got a good shot.

    Go PREZ! Our enemies need to pay attention...

    WendyB_09

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  11. You cereal killer - youll go to HELL for ths you now!

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  12. Okay, when did PETA go all B'hai on us? I remember when they actually had a point, and now they seem to have drunk their own kool-aid. You know, the Dali Llama has been know to swat a mosquito or two on occasion (of course, he tries to shoo them away the first few times, as I believe our President did, just as a warning, but if the fly or mosquito gets too greedy, they get the Loving Hammer of Karma).

    And you know what, I like a President that can swat the fly on the very first attempt! What's next, catching them with chopsticks ala Al from Happy Days but in that other weird movie?

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  13. Because they're fuzzy and cute of course. ;)

    Reminds me of Denis Leary's classic rant about how we oughta hold animal auditions:

    We only want to save the cute animals, don't we? Yeah. Why don't we just have animal auditions. Line 'em up one by one and interview them individually. "What are you?" "I'm an otter." "And what do you do?" "I swim around on my back and do cute little human things with my hands." "You're free to go." "And what are you?" "I'm a cow." "Get in the fucking truck, ok pal!" "But I'm an animal." "You're a baseball glove! Get on that truck!" "I'm an animal, I have rights!" "Yeah, here's yer fucking cousin, get on the fucking truck, pal!" We kill the cows to make jackets out of them and then we kill each other for the jackets we made out of the cows....

    (Courtesy of here.)

    I'm not sure PETA ever had that much of a legitimate point (as in I'm literally not sure and don't know, not as in I'm positively saying they didn't); they were founded as an extremist offshoot of New York animal advocacy groups, and their first "win" remains controversial--depending on who you believe, they either ruined a scientist's life by trying to frame him for animal cruelty or they forced a serious and overdue reform of lab practices by forcing a poorly-run lab to shut down (even if the shutdown didn't result in any criminal convictions). (You might be interested in recent feature in Slate.

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  14. I honor of PETA I just ground 5 pounds each of bratwurst, knockwurst, andouille and choirizo.

    This afternoon they get stuffed and if the rain holds off, the last three get smoked.

    And some will be dinner.

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  15. Once this last winter I was working on my laptop and I typically leave gmail up while I work. Gmail in what can be an oddly fascinating diversion to watch varies its advertising based on the content of the email in the inbox. PETA and the sea kittens came up as an advertisement. I e-mailed a friend of mine and asked what was so bloody important about the sea kittens. Were they the secret to life, the universe, and everything? When the alien probe scans the earth will we all be toast in they don't burble happily? He emailed back that in our history mankind was given the technology to smelt ores by an advanced alien race that travels the stars. They said that they would swing back for payment on the way home. Twenty thousand metric tons-- of sea kittens. Due in full. The payment deadline is coming you see. So. It isn't that PETA is batshit crazy. They are either inspiring a whole new generation of science fiction authors or protecting us from aliens.

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  16. Bawahaha!

    Color me chagrined, Annette.

    You do have the bones of an excellent story there, especially if the aliens are ursoid, and the sea kitten payment they're expecting is in salmon and blue berries...

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  17. I'm especially bad. I like my sea kittens raw. RAW, I tell you. It's the only way to eat sea kittens, especially the orange-colored kind...

    I am currently having a discussion with one of my daughter's summer camps. Apparently, the counselors are only allowed to apply bug spray once/day, and the kids aren't allowed to do it themselves. I could practically bathe the kid in bug spray and she will still come home chawed to bits and itchy as hell (just like her long-suffering mother, so I hear you, Mensley). Totally miserable. I am going to have to get a doctor's note so that she can use those bug repellent wipes at least one other time during the day. Stupid rules. Fucking mosquitoes.

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  18. you know, i'm an aimal lover i always have been, hell i don't even eat meat, (to include sea kittens) but PETA really pisses me off, these people need to get a life, i'm all about protecting every living creature (until ordered otherwise) but if someone swats a fly i don't break into hysteria like it's the end of the world. now President Obama is tinkering with my smoking and i'm not smiling but i stand behide hm 100 percent on killing that fly for you see and keep this hush hush but that fly was actually an al-queda terrorist.

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  19. Are mussels sea-kittens?

    If so the chorizo and sea-kittens last night were excellent

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  20. Mmmmm... raw sea kitten. Drool...

    What about all the grizzly bears that eat sea kittens or the sea kittens that eat sea kittens? How is PETA going to harass them?

    Spiders of the world! Stop eating flies! They are people too! Can't we all just get along?

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  21. I knew I shouldn't have waded into these comments. Sea kitten killers, the lot of you!

    PETA confuses me. I appreciate some of what they've done and shake my head at other things they've done.

    Sea kittens? Really? Gah.

    Makes me want to swat them.

    I've been responsible for the deaths of hundreds, nay, thousands of ants. You get into my cats' food, you get whacked. Even this vegetarian can be ruthless when needed. Come after me, PETA, I dare you!

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  22. Sea kittens are awesome. Raw, broiled, battered to death and deep fried, even boiled for a fish stew.

    With teriyaki, ketchup, lemon, sweet and sour, garlic butter, alfredo, white wine, beer.

    Drool you bastards, DROOL!

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