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True Green Report

PETA Revives Beer Not Milk Campaign

August 26, 2002

It’s no milk moustache for PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals). And if the group has its way, no milk on college campuses either.

PETA, which is resurrecting its drink beer not milk campaign, blames Canadian students for the resurrection.

According to PETA’s press release pushing beer, Canadian students are "Canucks".

"Two years ago, PETA got a rise out of everyone from dairy farmers to MADD with its tongue-in-cheek advisory to college kids that ounce for ounce, beer packs more nutrition than milk. Now a new Harvard study has topped off the debate with damning words about dairy products and a raised-glass salute to beer. The debate is about to spill over onto school campuses once again," said the PETA press release.

"When PETA pulled its "Got Beer?" Campaign because of public outcry, the uproar from Canuck students who can (and do) drink legally, was deafening. Most felt that PETA was caving in to members of the older generation who doubted the students’ ability to understand the message behind the stunt.
"Now with scientific evidence mounting that beer has health benefits previously unrecognized and with dairy foods being implicated in illnesses ranging from diabetes to cancer, PETA will revive the campaign with an advertisement in campus papers, as well as with "Got Beer?" bottle openers and beer cozies, which it will distribute through its College Action Campaign.

"PETA intends to kick off its campaign at the University of Waterloo, known across Canada for its reputation as a top party school. Says the Student’s Guide to Canadian Universities, `If it’s beer you’re looking for, then look no further.’

"Fanning the flames of the revival is an August 13, 2002 Wall Street Journal article, which reports that beer `delivers protection against major ailments such as heart attacks, strike, hypertension, diabetes and dementia.’"

No mention by PETA of the road deaths of young people attributed to drinking beer, but there are the usual horror stories about the animals that produce milk.

According to their latest rant, "Unlike beer drinking, dairy consumption also hurts animals. More than one-tenth of the average herd of cows is dead before the age of two from illness or injury inflicted down on the factory farm, while more die in transport and the rest are ground into cheap meats. Dairy cows are artificially impregnated, not a comfortable experience, and have their calves torn from them within days of birth–causing acute distress for both mother and calf–so that the milk they need can be sold in the supermarket."

"Beer in moderation is good for you, while even one glass of milk supports animal abuse and harms your health," says PETA’s Director of Vegan Outreach Bruce Friedrich. "The fact is that you can drink beer responsibly. The same can’t be said of milk."

 

… Everybody wants to save the Earth; nobody wants to help Mom do the dishes."

- Political humourist P.J. O’Rourke.

 

Living high on the hog

`Become a Greenpeace activist and live like a king’ should be the new recruitment logo for the world’s largest environmental lobby group.

According to Canada’s National Post, A Montreal-based Greenpeace staffer, who was caught holed up in the Prince George Hotel, was paying $160 per night.

In Halifax, to talk it up for the Kyoto climate change treaty, the Greenpeacer was sleeping at the same downtown hotel that was hosting the premiers.

Nice work if you can get it.

 

The food nannies

The food nannies, the mosquitoes-before-human society and the anti-meat fanatics may have paved the way for flab lawsuits.

A movement is afoot to hold the companies that peddle us fatty foods accountable for making us portly.

Last month, Caesar Barber, a 56-year-old maintenance worker from the Bronx, filed a lawsuit against four major fast food chains claiming their fatty fare led to his obesity and health problems, which include two heart attacks and diabetes. His attorney, Samuel Hirsch, estimates millions of Americans could be included in the claim, which charges deceptive marketing practices encourage obesity.

For that matter so do Mom’s apple pies and Aunt Lucy’s maple fudge.

Most consumers don’t buy into blaming McDonald’s for their own lack of self-control, and nutrition and weight loss experts call it a vast oversimplification to point the finger of blame at a specific food for causing obesity, which is now the second leading cause of preventable death in the United States.

But lest you think Barber and his attorney are out in left field, the sharks are already circling the waters. Attorney Richard Daynard, head of the Tobacco Products Liability Project at Northeastern University School of Law in Boston, is already planning a strategy session this fall for lawyers and public health experts to decide on effective strategies to hold food corporations accountable for the public health costs of their fattening menus.

"Obviously, no one is saying the fast food industry is entirely responsible for the obesity epidemic, but they bear a significant piece of the blame," Daynard said. "The idea is to find out really what conduct on their part has contributed to obesity, such as misrepresenting the healthiness of the foods they sell."

Barber, who is 5-foot-10-inches and weighs in at 272 pounds, said he started eating fast food over 30 years ago because it was cheap and he didn’t know how to cook. But he said he didn’t know it was bad for his health until his doctor told him so after he had his heart attacks.

"It was 100 percent beef and that to me said it was good," he told American reporters. "I never knew about the saturated fat, the sodium content, the sugar content, none of that."

Barber got through school, and got a mechanic’s licence, but didn’t know a diet of fatty foods was bad for his overweight frame?

The mechanic’s lawsuit brought a left-wing think tank into the food fray.

Demos, which has close links with the Government, will urge ministers to impose a levy on "fatty, highly processed and fast foods" in order to encourage people to eat more healthy.

Animal rights activist jailed for threats:

Justice for Huntingdon

"An animal rights activist who threatened to kill financial backers of the UK product-testing firm Huntingdon Life Sciences was jailed for four and a half years, Reuters reports.

"Robert Moaby was handed one of the longest ever prison sentences for an animal rights activist for making the threats to North American financial institutions in a bid to drive Huntingdon out of business, police said.

"The move comes as animal rights protesters on both sides of the Atlantic move from chants and banners to more direct and occasionally violent action to stop companies using animals to test products ranging from drugs to food additives.

"Moaby, 33, threatened to kill senior executives of the Bank of New York and Toronto’s AIM Fund Management as part of a campaign that has forced Huntingdon to relocate from England to the United States, police said.

"Moaby was arrested last year after the FBI traced emails sent to U.S. firms.

"British police said they seized Moaby’s computer in June 2001 and found the threatening emails together with more than 2,800 images of child pornography.

"Moaby, from London’s King’s Cross area, pleaded guilty at the city’s Southwark Crown Court to threats to kill and counts of making indecent photographs.

"Police said Moaby was a supporter of the animal rights group Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC). Police said there was no evidence SHAC was behind the death threats.

"The group heads a campaign which has come close to driving Huntingdon out of business as clients and banks have abandoned the UK’s leading contract research firm after threats to their staff.

"Actions against Huntingdon, which has around 70,000 animals, escalated in 2001 when Managing Director Brian Cass was beaten with a baseball bat.

"SHAC condemns people who abuse children as well as people who abuse animals," SHAC said in a statement following Moaby’s sentencing. "As far as we are concerned they should be locked in jail and the key thrown away."

"Huntingdon officials were not available for comment."



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