meat is murder

Common sense and scientific reason has prevailed and the English badger cull has been cancelled due to the government considering an earlier, larger scale report that proved no conclusive link between badgers and bovine TB. This has aggravated farmers who are going to stamp and shout about it instead of putting their own house in order and improve the living conditions of and stop the movements of the animals in their charge. Or they could go one step further and just stand aside from the death industries altogether. (Badgers and Bovine TB information at Animal Aid.)

From the bbc

The government has decided against a cull of badgers in England to control TB in cattle, the BBC understands.Its decision goes against former chief scientific adviser Sir David King’s recommendations, made in 2007, that a cull could be an effective measure.
The decision has angered the National Farmers’ Union, which claims cattle TB has already cost the industry millions. In April a “targeted cull” of badgers was announced in Wales as part of a plan to eradicate TB in cattle.

But ministers have instead accepted the scientific arguments of the Independent Scientific Group on TB in Cattle.
NFU president Peter Kendall told BBC News that Westminster had “ducked the issue” and that the union would be organising a protest outside Parliament next week. A policy announcement is due on Monday. The ISG’s analysis - an earlier and much larger study than Sir David’s - concluded that culling badgers would not be economic.

However the imminent remains.

This isn’t a rant, it isn’t an opinion, it isn’t even close to being news…it’s just a post that encompasses two cool things. Zombies and Tofu. Yes, there is an entity out there in the world called ‘Tofu, the Vegan Zombie’.

Tofu, the Vegan Zombie

“Tofu” is a friendly zombie, created from a botched experiment in Professor Vost’s laboratory. Monkey # 5, one of Vost’s lab animals, stuffed a block of tofu into the zombie boy’s open skull after accidentally losing the brain. As a result, “Tofu” eats only vegetables and grains and has no taste for human meat. However, if “Tofu” ever loses his “tofu-brain”, he turns into a dangerous zombie creature, craving human flesh.

Professor Vost’s sole mission in life is to find a cure for the menacing zombie epidemic plaguing mankind. Vost believes the zombie pathogen to be viral, caused by the genetic manipulation of meat products. The Evil Mallesteros, owner of the world’s largest meat packing company, wants to shut down Professor Vost’s research because sales from meat are beginning to suffer due to Vost’s conclusive findings.

“Tofu” is able to walk among both the human and zombie world with safety and ease, however, he is never fully trusted or accepted by either group. The professor’s daughter Addie helps “Tofu” blend into the human world by bringing him along with Lab Monkey #5 for fun and adventures. However, Lab Monkey #5’s mischievous, playful nature always gets “Tofu” and Addie into trouble.

Because of his unique ability to intermingle in both worlds, and his harmless vegetarian nature, the professor believes “Tofu” to be the key in solving the Zombie epidemic. The question is; will he have enough time to find a cure?.

The Birth of Tofu…

Channel Five News in the UK has been exposing how the standards of Freedom Foods Farms are not so righteous as the consumer is told. These are farms given a mark of approval by the RSPCA and are supposedly not as gruesome as the rest of the modern mechanised animal production machinery.
And as always we see that there is no escape from the fact that cruelty is involved in getting meat to a plate.
And it is also worth remembering that even if these standards had been met the animals still end up terrified at the same slaughter house having their lives taken away.

From news.five.tv

Five News has uncovered more evidence of chickens being kept in horrifying conditions at an RSPCA ‘Freedom Food’ farm, this time in Somerset.
Last week, Five News reported on the appalling conditions chickens were being kept in at a farm in Norfolk. The farm was endorsed by the RSPCA’s ‘Freedom Food’ label and is now facing an investigation into their handling of chickens.In Jason Farrell’s latest investigation he has uncovered another farm failing to meet the relevant standards set by the ‘Freedom Food’ label.
Video Blog Watch how Jason Farrell uncovered this latest investigation.
Click here to watch the video blog.

The state of animals in farming is a shocking spectacle. Most people are able to live a life of deliberate ignorance and see meat wrapped in plastic or behind the glass of a deli counter and dis-associate it from the misery of the living being that was the meat before the plastic. The horror of animal farming was highlighted in today’s Independent as they were passed photographs from an Animal Aid undercover investigation.

Government vets have launched an investigation into Britain’s pig farming industry after disturbing images showing dead and diseased animals were passed to The Independent.

Pork farmers have been conducting a high-profile advertising campaign to encourage consumers to buy more expensive British produce, claiming that standards are higher than they are on the Continent. But the images, taken at farms linked to leaders of the industry, raise serious concerns about the welfare of the majority of the country’s 8 million pigs.

Vets at the Government’s Animal Health agency, which enforces welfare legislation and conducts regular inspections of farm premises, said it would investigate the findings.

Activists from the welfare group Animal Aid entered 10 farms in March and April. Two of the farms were operated by companies run by members of the industry’s governing body the British Pig Executive (BPEX), while others were linked to other senior figures in the industry. 

Animal Aid claimed its investigation showed that farmers were “falling considerably short” of the images it portrayed in its campaigning. Shot in Cornwall, Somerset, Lincolnshire, North and East Yorkshire, the footage shows pigs with sores where they have rubbed against metal bars; farrowing crates that prevent sows from moving; pigs with bite marks; collapsed and convulsing animals; pigs covered in excrement; dirty pens; and routine tail-docking.

remainder of article at the Independent

• More than nine million pigs are slaughtered annually in the UK.
• Around 450,000 sows are currently used for breeding.
• Seventy per cent of British pigmeat comes from animals reared intensively, but even ‘outdoor reared’ and ‘outdoor raised’ pigs spend half or more of their lives indoors.
• Britain’s modest advances in pig welfare have not been made alone, and this country is certainly not in the vanguard. Sweden, for example, banned tethering almost three decades before Britain. And in 1997, Switzerland banned the use of farrowing crates altogether, making nonsense of Britain?s claims that we lead the way. In Sweden, weaning takes place at 5-6 weeks, an improvement on Britain and yet still far short of the17 weeks that pigs suckle and nurse their young in semi-natural conditions. The tethering of sows is now banned across the entire EU. Sow stalls are banned in Denmark, the Netherlands, Sweden and Finland, as well as Britain. In 2013 they will be illegal across the whole of the EU. In Sweden, all pigs must be provided with straw or other litter material ? something that British pigs are largely denied. And pigs on Swedish farms may be held in a farrowing crate for a maximum of one week. In Britain, it is four weeks. Norway will enforce a ban on the castration of piglets from 2009 ? something which, although only rarely carried out in the UK, has not been outlawed here.

It’s not often that news on meatismurder that links religion and slaughterhouses together takes any form of beneficial slant but a Jain religious festival leads to a shut down of slaughterhouses in Mumbai. Please note that any comments made about religious slaughterhouses and practices is in no way an endorsement of secular slaughter practices. Nor is this a veiled attack on religion as religious slaughter is often used by morons who approach animal rights stall holders looking for an avenue to vent their hateful bile.

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s decision to shut down all city slaughterhouses during the Jain festival of Paryushan has run into opposition from meat sellers. The Brihanmumbai Hindu Khatik Samaj Sanghatna, an association of meat sellers, has decided to observe a dharna on Wednesday at Azad Maidan.

The Paryushan will be observed between August 27 and September 3 this year. Those participating in the dharna will have their mouths taped and hands tied.

The BMC, at a general body meeting of the elected representatives on April 7, decided shut down all abattoirs during the nine-day Jain festival. According to the protestors, the worst hit will be the owners and the workers of the slaughterhouses.

According to the association, there are around 1,500 BMC-owned and licensed shops selling meat in Mumbai apart from illegal ones in and around suburbs. They employ over 25,000 daily-wage workers who earn a meagre Rs 100-Rs 150 per day. The closing of the slaughterhouses for nine days would mean no income for these workers for those nine days, the association said.

Sixty-five-year-old Maltibai Eknath Kothmere, a widow, earns her livelihood in the form of rent from the slaughter shop her husband had left her. Seated in her tiny one-room house, she complained: “No money means no food. We are somehow managing with the little income that we get as rent, but now with the BMC’s resolution, I do not know how we will survive for those nine days.”

Remainder of article at ExpressIndia.com