Category Archives: Ethics

When Powerful Meat Producers Muscle Puny Plant-Based Meat Producers

Business, Environmentalism & Animal Rights, Ethics

“The beef industry in America has been urging legislatures to restrict the use of the word ‘meat’ to that which comes from an animal carcass,” reports the Economist.

When big business, nay massive, begins to muscle small business (with a tiny share of the food market), you ask critical questions—that is if you are a fair-minded thinker, as conservative and libertarian-minded people ought to be.

The latter must certainly reject restrictions on speech in advertising.

Which is why it is clear on whose side a fair-minded person will be in the case of the meat producers vs. the makers and marketers of plant-based meat.

Remember, the word “meat” is NOT A TRADEMARK, it’s a noun in the English language.

So longs as plant-based meat producers are clearly listing the ingredients on the packaging of their products and are not defrauding the consumer—I know on whose side I am. But then I’m fair-minded, not partisan.

FROM “Plant-based meat could create a radically different food chain”:

..At least nine American states—including Arkansas, Missouri and Mississippi—have now agreed. The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association is also asking the Food and Drug Administration, the federal regulator, to outlaw what it sees as misleading labelling of plant-based meat. In April the European Parliament’s agriculture committee recommended the introduction of a ban on plant-based meat producers using such terms as “burgers” and “sausages”, although the proposal has not yet been debated or voted upon by the full parliament. The European Court of Justice ruled that many plant-based alternatives could not be labelled “milk” in 2017, but this did not noticeably affect demand.
The fight over labels is a sign that meat producers are on the defensive, says Mr Friedrich of the GFI. “The meat industry attempting to define meat as something that comes from a slaughtered animal is every bit as absurd as trying to say that your phone is not a phone because it doesn’t plug into a wall any more,” he claims.
When plant-based meat becomes common, language will no doubt adapt. The word “meat” may one day simply evoke the sensory experience that comes from eating a particular blend of fats, amino acids, minerals and water.
Whether that is made by slaughtering animals or by some other means depends on the ingenuity of the new meat makers. …

* Image courtesy of The Economist.

UPDATED III (4/11/020): DRUDGE Clearly Cares Deeply About Animals, All Animals

Conservatism, Culture, Environmentalism & Animal Rights, Ethics, Media, Morality

To his great credit, DRUDGE Report alerts almost daily to stories of abuse of wild and companion animals.

Drudge is also clearly trying to raise consciousness about the destruction of animal habitat at the hands of humans, that is if thematically consistent headlines on the site are any indication.

And DRUDGE does not appear to be one of those ethically challenged individuals who’ll tell you, “I’m a dog person; fuck the lions who’re being culled in canned hunts.”

My impression from following this news aggregator’s headlines for years is that DRUDGE cares deeply about animals and their fate.

Today, the item on Drudge raised awareness about “the complex relationship between humans and animals.”

Yesterday, Drudge linked to a story of a starving elephant made to carry tourists until she dropped dead.  Disgusting culture that would allow this.

I will keep you updated with a daily Drudge on animals.

UPDATE I (12/26/019):

Via DRUDGE: “Elephants in Thailand ‘broken’ for lucrative animal tourism…”

UPDATE II (1/14/020): Parrots are innately kind.

UPDATE II (2/14/020):

“Meet the Wildlife Police: An unsung group of conservation heroes often stands between human predators and species on the edge of extinction”:

One of these critter cops is Andy McWilliam, a veteran English police officer who joined the NWCU at its inception in 2006. Mr. McWilliam has tracked down taxidermists and collectors of rare birds and mammals; prosecuted real-estate developers who destroyed the habitats of protected water voles and brown long-eared bats; and helped lead a national campaign to arrest egg collectors, a fraternity of largely middle-aged men who raid nests in England, Scotland and Wales, threatening protected species from kingfishers to golden eagles.
Even within their own departments, wildlife police sometimes struggle for respect. Mr. McWilliam recalls being taunted by colleagues in Liverpool after he returned to the station house with an egg collector in custody. “Put him before the beak,” they joked, using a slang term for a magistrate. …

… In 2017, Mr. McWilliam gathered intelligence in England for his American counterparts that led to the arrest, conviction and jailing of a Connecticut taxidermist who had stuffed and smuggled dozens of rare, protected birds, in violation of both the U.S. Migratory Bird Treaty Act and the Endangered Species Act.

The NWCU has inspired other wildlife-crime units. Belgium, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Denmark, Estonia, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Latvia and the Netherlands all established or strengthened environmental-crime divisions in recent years. Operation Blizzard, a 2019 investigation overseen by Interpol and Europol, mobilized wildlife agencies from 22 countries against the illegal global trade of reptiles. The operation, according to Interpol, “resulted in the seizure of 2,703 turtles and tortoises, 1,059 snakes, 512 lizards and geckos, and 20 crocodiles and alligators.”
More in Ideas

The case of Jeffrey Lendrum, a notorious bird thief and smuggler who trafficked live peregrine eggs to wealthy falconers in the Persian Gulf, brought the NWCU its greatest encomiums—and showcased the increased cooperation of wildlife cops across international borders. In 2010, Mr. McWilliam led the investigation against Mr. Lendrum in Birmingham, England, for peregrine smuggling that sent him to prison for a year. In October 2015, Mr. Lendrum flew to Patagonia on another egg-thieving mission. A hotel clerk who’d read about the Birmingham arrest six years earlier tipped off Chile’s wildlife police, but Mr. Lendrum had already departed for Brazil. The Chileans alerted their Brazilian counterparts, who nabbed him in São Paulo’s airport as he was about to board a flight to Dubai. Wildlife agents seized four rare, white-breasted peregrine eggs stolen from Patagonia’s cliffs. …

UPDATE III (4/11/020): Corona and Zoonotic transmission

As this blog post suggests, DRUDGE is attempting to lead the ethical way via his hyperlinks.

Via Drudge, a news aggregator, comes the news link concerning Jane Goodall warning that the manner in which animals, wild and domestic, are raised, harvested and treated creates conditions and opportunity for viruses to jump from animals across the species barrier to humans.

She is not without sympathy and solutions for the poor, but she knows of what she speaks regarding the zoonotic source of the coronavirus pandemic.

The Pushy Kushners Go To Camp David

Celebrity, Donald Trump, Ethics, Family

The Kushners have ridden President Trump’s coattails into the White House.

Nobody voted for them; nobody worthwhile wants to see their fingerprints on policy, or their presence anywhere near the People’s House.

But the two, driven by the ambitious First Lady In-Waiting (Ivanka Trump is purported to have political “ambitions”), are intent on cementing their Camelot-like status as political movers-and-shakers.

This most ambitious and empty-headed of couples, both presidential advisers (yes, anything goes in America), is now insisting on celebrating a wedding anniversary at Camp David.

I have no attachment to the place. Nevertheless, I do not wish to see the two interlopers, Ivanka and Jared, frolic about as though they have anything more than a shameful place in presidential history.

Democrats Too Dumb To Turn The Hunter Biden Issue On Republicans

China, Democrats, Donald Trump, Ethics, Foreign Policy, Republicans

The only way debating Democrats can benefit from the Hunter Biden confession “over his foreign business deals,” in Ukraine and China, is if they hammer home the following fundamental point:

Donald Trump should have gotten those kids of his out of the White House a long time ago!

But Democrats won’t point to a legitimate beef on the Republican side in order to distract from the burden of Hunter Biden, because they are too dumb and don’t have the courage to attack the Kushners.

Were Dems to make the Kushners their example of nepotism, they’d be doing Deplorables a big favor. Going after the Kushners is a win, win situation for all.

“Did I make a mistake? Well, maybe in the grand scheme of things, yeah,” he said, again referring to fallout from his overseas business. “But did I make a mistake based upon some ethical lapse? Absolutely not.”
Biden said, “I take — full responsibility for that. Do I — did I do anything improper? No, and not in any way. Not in any way whatsoever. I joined a board, I served honorably. I did — I focused on corporate governance. I didn’t have any discussions with my father before or after I joined the board as it related to it, other than that brief exchange that we had.”

[abcNews]