Happy Thanksgiving from Gov. Sarah Palin

Who could forget this Thanksgiving classic? In one of the most bizarre press conferences ever- Governor Sarah Palin pardons a turkey and talks about how fun it was as turkeys right behind her are slaughtered. Happy Thanksgiving to you too!

Pilot Whales Brutally Slaughtered Annually in the Faroe Islands

Residents of the Faroe Islands, an autonomous province of Denmark, slaughter and eat pilot whales every year, as these photos graphically depict.  The Faroese are descendents of Vikings, and pilot whales have been a central part of their diet for more than 1,000 years.  They crowd these intelligent animals into a bay and kill them, cutting the dorsal area through to the spinal cord.   In the process, their main arteries get cut.  As you can see, the waters in the bay turn bright red from all the blood.

Ironically, this practice, called grindadráp, is diminishing the population of 5,000 islanders.  Many of them get sick and die from high mercury levels in the whales.  Mentally retarded children are reportedly being born at alarmingly high rates.

To be clear, the whales are not endangered and animal rights organizations have largely backed off due to the fact that this process is such an integral part of Faroese culture, and because the Faroese aren’t involved in commercial whaling.  That doesn’t make the pictures any easier to look at, though.

PBS has a video about the mercury problem and this culture’s deeply held beliefs called ‘The Faroe Islands – Message from the Sea’, viewable here.

Link [PBS] + [Wikipedia]

PETA Fail: Runs Ad Comparing Greyhound Horror Killing to Animal Slaughterhouse Killing Horror

PETA has done it again.

In a not-so-surprising-for-PETA show of good taste, the animal rights group attempted to run an ad comparing animal slaughter to the brutal murder of Tim McClean, the 22-year-old who was beheaded by Vince Weiguang Li on a Greyhound bus in Winnipeg bound Canadian bus on July 30.

“His struggles and cries are ignored … the man with the knife shows no emotion … the victim is slaughtered and his head cut off … his flesh is eaten,” reads the ad, which can be seen on the organization’s website.

The ad was intended to run in the Portage la Prairie Daily Graphic. The newspaper refused it. Rightly so.

If PETA was intending to make themselves look like insane, insensitive radicals who write heavy-handed copy more befitting of Emily Bronte novels, they’ve succeeded. They’ve done a bang-up job of alienating pretty much everyone. Well done, guys. This was definitely a classy choice.

Link [Globe & Mail]