Some People... (rant!)

[ruraldean]

Update: Just been listening to BBC Radio 4 news in the car, and aside from the UK's own "independent" inquiry into the email scandal, the UN are now launching their own enquiry. Saudi Arabia are viewing this as confirmation that Global Warming isn't man made (if we can agree it's happening at all), and our own UK Climate Secretary, Ed Miliband, has said that he's not going to be swayed by a few emails, but although he's not a scientist, he believes what the scientists are telling him and doesn't believe a "single scientist" denies man's part in Global Warming. WTF?

In a separate interview about the rival Conservative Party views on GW, Mr Miliband said: “We have to beware of climate saboteurs, the people who want to say that this is in doubt and want to cast aspersions on the whole process. The science is clear and settled."

Is it? does anyone here think it is settled?

So who are the real deniers? Sceptics, or the sheeple who blindly follow the party line?

 

[Buzzard]

Actually it is because mass produce cattle to the extreme and all of their sh*t runs into our water ways. Chemicals or not mass sh*t is mass sh*t in our water ways. If grazing animals stayed as such and not being factory farmed their would be way less of that sh*t

Actually it the phosorphus that we give the cattle in there food and fertilizers they consume from the hay and grass they eat. Cattle raised with little to no chemical enhancement have a far less impact on any water body. My wife is a biologist. When she worked for the Florida's DEP and she had to keep check on all the Dairy farms in her region. There are strict guidelines on number of head and runoff per acre(in FL) due to the water table being so close to the surface. Now I dont know about where you live and things maybe backwards but cattle poo is far from being the only source of waste in the waterways. chemical plants, Waste water plants, the neighbor dumping out an old bucket of paint, ect.... Are far more destructive. Dont get me wrong I think there should be education for farmer and runoff off there farms. Is poo bad to have run into a waterway, Heck yea, but it is by far not the worse of it. Humans, do the most damage, and we have just come to relize that. Hopefully we all will come around to better practices....

 

[RowanRR]

Several hens, less messy than a single dog? I don't think so. I'd be inclined to disagree on them being less noisy, also. But I do think that everyone should have to take some sort of course so that they can learn how their meat is processed, from start to finish- that would at least invalidate some of the PETA BS that is out there. My problem(s) with the whole meat debate are a) there are people high up making decisions that don't have a clue as to what they are talking about and b) the lies PETA (a terrorist group) uses to try to guilt people over to their side. Look at one of their goals: to make it so that people no longer own animals (meaning dogs, cats, horses, snakes, etc would be turned loose and allowed to run free and fend for themselves). I don't know about y'alls pets, but if I turned my dog loose, I don't think he would leave. He'd probably sit on my front porch and give me sad looks through the window. My cat would die pretty quickly, as his previous owner had him completely declawed. My horse, who is used to eating grain at regular times each day and having a safe environment to live in, would not know what to do with herself. And my corn snakes would be eaten rather quickly due to their bright coloration.

And back to my letter a): these people may not portray people high up in government, but (scarily) people like that are voting on matters related to the agriculture industry. Sure, it's a video for laughs, but it's so true (not to bash on California or Los Angeles):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7llXBcvVEUU

 

[Emily1188]

Actually, PETA does not want us to turn out existing pets loose. They want to slowly fade domestic animals from existence by creating laws/public sentiment that make it difficult to breed and work domestic animals.

I only point this out because every time somebody claims, "PETA wants to release our pets!" it's only too easy for them to refute and come out looking like the good guys. It's important to point out their REAL agenda so that people can see things like mandatory spay/neuter laws, BSL, and the like for what they are - Animals rights nonsense that has nothing to do with making life better for domestic animals, and everything to do with making NO life for domestic animals.

 

[Buzzard]

LMAO :roflmao: :roflmao: :roflmao::rofl::rofl::rofl:

I love it..(RowanRR).. I have to show my wife that....

 

[tyflier]

Actually it is because mass produce cattle to the extreme and all of their sh*t runs into our water ways. Chemicals or not mass sh*t is mass sh*t in our water ways. If grazing animals stayed as such and not being factory farmed their would be way less of that sh*t

So...what about the chemical fertilizer runoff that would be required to operate farms and agriculture large enough to producwe enough vegetation to feed a world of vegans? You do realize that organic farming is simply an impossiblity, if you want to provide vegetable food for everyone, right? Of course you realize this would mean all of those cow farms would be turned into gigantic, mass-production fields of vegetation, which in turn would suck all of the water from most of the water table, cause chemical fertilizer runoff to destroy stream and river populations, and still not even be close to being able to provide enough vegetation to feed a qworld of vegans...right?

We have about a billion more people on the planet than the planet can reasonably sustain. Let's not blame the cows...

And Cornsnake124...you say you don't like people getting in your face and telling you what to do or how to live and insisting their opinion is the only right one, and I'm right there with you...I can't stand that stuff. I hate it more when it's as hypocritical as you insisting that only YOUR opinion is right. Irony...gotta love it...

 

[RowanRR]

It made me, and my class of 200 Ag students, giggle uncontrollably! Something else that I heard was that everyone blames cows, and the methane gas that they produce, for global warming. What do cows eat? What do vegetarians eat? Coincidence? Lol. (I'm not against vegetarians at all- I tried doing it myself for like a week, but then I saw a burger... and my resolve failed.)

After reading though PETA's website (*shivers*), I agree that they *say* that they don't want to take animals that are "well cared for" and "set them free," but they also say that "we believe that it would have been in the animals' best interests if the institution of "pet keeping"—i.e., breeding animals to be kept and regarded as "pets"—never existed". I don't want to turn someone else's rant into a rant about PETA, but if you look at their values, a lot of what they say contradicts what they actually do.

 

[Dinah]

Kathy

I, like you love my country life. We live on 10 acres and have a wonderful garden outside the back door, where many of our produce needs are grown. And our chickens are in the works my husband is working on the coop and we are hoping to be ready this spring for spring chicks. Our plan is to eat their eggs and eventually after we get our population started we plan to eat them. Really the best way to know what your are eating is to take responsibility and produce whatever you can on your own. I know some people do not think killing a chicken can be kind, but the reality is that the chickens who will roam my land are going to have a way better life and when I feed them to my family, I will know for sure that they have not been pumped full of junk, and I will know that during their lives they were not mistreated, or kept in a terrible situation.

Anyways just wanted to say hi to someone who seems like a kindred spirit.

Dinah

 

[Cornsnake124]

Kathy

I, like you love my country life. We live on 10 acres and have a wonderful garden outside the back door, where many of our produce needs are grown. And our chickens are in the works my husband is working on the coop and we are hoping to be ready this spring for spring chicks. Our plan is to eat their eggs and eventually after we get our population started we plan to eat them. Really the best way to know what your are eating is to take responsibility and produce whatever you can on your own. I know some people do not think killing a chicken can be kind, but the reality is that the chickens who will roam my land are going to have a way better life and when I feed them to my family, I will know for sure that they have not been pumped full of junk, and I will know that during their lives they were not mistreated, or kept in a terrible situation.

Anyways just wanted to say hi to someone who seems like a kindred spirit.

Dinah

That sounds great, and its a great way to raise your own food, etc etc... But thats not country living in its whole. You need a barn, 50 head of cattle 100 acres of pasture, 200 head of hogs, 20 chickens, and more.

 

[yellowbellyhippy]

Actually it the phosorphus that we give the cattle in there food and fertilizers they consume from the hay and grass they eat. Cattle raised with little to no chemical enhancement have a far less impact on any water body. My wife is a biologist. When she worked for the Florida's DEP and she had to keep check on all the Dairy farms in her region. There are strict guidelines on number of head and runoff per acre(in FL) due to the water table being so close to the surface. Now I dont know about where you live and things maybe backwards but cattle poo is far from being the only source of waste in the waterways. chemical plants, Waste water plants, the neighbor dumping out an old bucket of paint, ect.... Are far more destructive. Dont get me wrong I think there should be education for farmer and runoff off there farms. Is poo bad to have run into a waterway, Heck yea, but it is by far not the worse of it. Humans, do the most damage, and we have just come to relize that. Hopefully we all will come around to better practices....

Humans do make the most damage.....by factory farming!

 

[yellowbellyhippy]

All I can say in this thread is that Im vegan and I believe it is the right thing to do for people,the planet and animals. You can make fun of me by your "Im going out for steak tonight" good for you!! I don't care. It's YOU putting that crap in your body. Anyways, the meat eating talk doesn't bother me so trying to get to me isn't working.
My diet makes me happy and I feel it's the best thing you can do. End of story!

 

[Dinah]

That sounds great, and its a great way to raise your own food, etc etc... But thats not country living in its whole. You need a barn, 50 head of cattle 100 acres of pasture, 200 head of hogs, 20 chickens, and more.

Well we also must be practical. We have 10 acres to work with and eat less than 15 lbs of red meat per year and less than 10 lbs of pork per year, so I am not totally sure what I would do with all the cattle/hogs. While it is true that there are places where people live out in the middle of nowhere and by nowhere I mean on 100's of acres and an hour plus to get to a gas station. That is just not a situation that is an option here in FL, in most places an hour drive will take you half way across the state (in terms of East/West). But I can assure you our country life is plenty country to qualify.

Perhaps there are other definitions of country life, but to us having few neighbors/traffic, no HOA, and enough land to provide for ourselves is country enough. For us it is mostly about having the room and the ability to live the sort of life where we take care of ourselves and in exchange for taking care of ourselves and minding our own business we are in return left alone. So by my definition we are living in country life paradise.

You are welcome to create your own country life paradise, that is what is great about having a country life attitude, what my neighbors define as their country life paradise doesn't have to be any of my business.

 

[Cornsnake124]

that sounds great!

But we don't eat them all, we usually sell most of them. the nearest major city is an hour drive away. we have more than 100 acres of pasture, around 150 acres of corn and soybeans to.

I cant and didn't create it.. I was born into it! Don't get me wrong, I love it out here. Just showing that i don't have any choice in the matter, even if the choice that I was born into is the one I like.

 

[Buzzard]

That sounds great, and its a great way to raise your own food, etc etc... But thats not country living in its whole. You need a barn, 50 head of cattle 100 acres of pasture, 200 head of hogs, 20 chickens, and more.

I have to disagree with this statement. You can "farm" on a much smaller scale than you think. I agree the size farm you live on is an awesome size and sounds like a great way of life ,but I have seen "farming" on much more compact area of land and with fewer livestock, pasture/feild area. I am talking like 5 acre mini-farms. Where they have taken many concepts and compacted them to support a lifestyle(food wise). I actually did research on them back in college. I actually thought about trying to do one but life got in the way.....

 

[RowanRR]

I agree with Buzzard. You don't have to own every type of livestock or have hundreds of acres of land in order to be considered a farmer. Maybe it would be more profitable for commercial farming, but there are some operations that just raise dairy cattle, for example. And there are the feeder/finisher/stocker operations. Out here in Texas, we have a lot of room to spread out, but in some more populated places they don't have as much room to work with and must scale down their practices.

 

[Dinah]

I see it is like your business to raise the animals. It is different for us and it would be totally impractical for us to try to take on so much. We have a country lifestyle, but that doesn't have to mean we have a farming business. It is just me, my husband, our two little girls, and next year my mother in law is moving up (which no matter what anyone says is going to be GREAT because I adore my MIL and cannot wait for her to live here). And while I am a stay at home mom/homeschooling mom, my husband does have to go to his job in the city so he can't help a lot for day to day land operations. We do have a neighbor a couple miles down the road who has a lot of pasture and keeps cows, but like you it is his business. Central FL traditionally had a lot of cattle raising although most of that land was purchased by Disney many years before I was even around, now there are only a few pockets of ranches scattered around. Also raising cattle in Central FL is highly controversial b/c we are the beginning of the watershed to the everglades, and since I am original from south FL I am very sensitive to the potential effects with that.

Buzzard there is a great book called 'How to Grow More Vegetables: Than You Ever Thought Possible on Less Land Than You Can Imagine' if you are interested in that topic, my copy of it is in tatters because I have found it very useful so I can recommend it as a cool resource/read to anyone interested in the subject.

 

[Emily1188]

After reading though PETA's website (*shivers*), I agree that they *say* that they don't want to take animals that are "well cared for" and "set them free," but they also say that "we believe that it would have been in the animals' best interests if the institution of "pet keeping"—i.e., breeding animals to be kept and regarded as "pets"—never existed". I don't want to turn someone else's rant into a rant about PETA, but if you look at their values, a lot of what they say contradicts what they actually do.

Isn't that exactly what I said? They don't want us all to turn our animals loose, but they do want to gradually abolish the concept of domestic animals.

 

[Buzzard]

Buzzard there is a great book called 'How to Grow More Vegetables: Than You Ever Thought Possible on Less Land Than You Can Imagine' if you are interested in that topic, my copy of it is in tatters because I have found it very useful so I can recommend it as a cool resource/read to anyone interested in the subject.

Actually I already have it. I got it several years ago... LOL.... It is a great resource.

One of many reason me and the wife got out of FL was land. I had none, could not afford any. Now I'm in AL. The county I am in has more cows than people. :grin01: I started a great garden this year and the previous owner had a sweet potato plot that has some of the biggest Ive ever seen...

 

[RowanRR]

Isn't that exactly what I said? They don't want us all to turn our animals loose, but they do want to gradually abolish the concept of domestic animals.

I'm saying that they say that they don't want us to turn them all loose, but what they say and what they actually do are two different things.

 

[Emily1188]

I'm saying that they say that they don't want us to turn them all loose, but what they say and what they actually do are two different things.

So PETA sneaks into houses and releases dogs at night? I agree that they're an utterly useless organization, filled to the brim with idiots, but I would really love for you to show me where they go and let dogs run free from homes/shelters.