Absolutely brilliant, Meredith. Very resolving for meat eaters, vegetarians and all those in between. Personally I prefer the vegan nuggets to the not-dogs, highly recommended.

PS, back to the topic. I am now in the process of writing post number 67 for this thread. Upon reflection I think that most people who have posted (myself included) have easily done more whinging, and said more spiteful, nasty comments than what Greanpeace have been accused of themselves.

I am making the resolution right now, to resist falling into the slanging trap, to ignore degrading comments as they should be, and to stick with the issue at hand.

Peace to you all.

David Latimer:
You are totally correct, it is logical not to dispute them. And yet, they do! And if they haven’t got what they think is a logical response, they resort to “ad hominem attacks”. That is my point!
The suppression of honest discussion by the use of intimidating language and vile attacks on the integrity of other posters, when they have obviously been misconstrued, does not lead to any possible consensus. This goes for all of us. Myself included.
Is it not more honest to admit that the other poster has a point, if you cannot think of any logical response?
I apologise if I have labelled anyone incorrectly a lefty or greeny.
Craig Blanch:
Yes, the use of labels makes thinking a little easier, but not only for the feeble minded, and saves time when wishing to describe a set of ideas. Isn’t that why people use words like “Conservative”, Neo-con”, “Fascist” “Communist” “Catholic” “Protestant” etc? In fact, people label themselves, it is not always imposed upon them. Some people are very proud of their labels. Tubley, for example, proudly labels himself an “animal rights and environmental activist”. It is a lot quicker to give oneself a label than to have to spell out every time exactly everything one believes. BTW you can call me a toad if you want: it’s your freedom of speech after all.
Tubley: Thanks for your last posting. I don’t agree with all you say, but you certainly have the right to say it without being vilified.
Rancitas: Is your pseudonym, which I think is Latin, (please correct me if I’m wrong) intended to mean “saveur rancide” in French or “rancid taste” in English? If so, it is rather curious. Not a criticism… just curious to know why you call yourself that.
Continued:

Yes, I do have a problem with the left, by which I mean the people who espouse extreme socialism in its many and varied forms. I consider socialism to be a failed idea that has now outlived its usefulness. I believe that the reason it has failed, while it may have had admirable objectives in the beginning, is that it does not take human nature into account.
On the other hand, I do not support extreme capitalism either, because it leads to too much inequity.
I do not like “Political Correctness”, which I think is a development from socialism. This, to me, is a way of deforming language, much in the same way as George Orwell described Newspeak in his book “1984”. IMHO it is a form of intellectual dishonesty, and more importantly it is a method of repression and inhibiting freedom of expression.
The question about “habitable planets with no inhabitants” is obviously an exaggeration. It springs from description of a certain type of environmental activist, most often leftist (sorry for the label but it saves time) who sees the human race as a kind of “blight” or “plague” on the planet. They are anti-business, anti-capitalist, and believe that the human population of the Earth should be reduced to about 1.5 billion.
They are the type of people who gleefully talk about Peak Oil, as causing the death of billions of people, and they rejoice in this possibility.
I admit that not all “greenies” want this, but the tendency is there to some degree in many of them. I am, of course, FOR a healthy, non-polluted environment.
I am against those who try to use this concern for the environment in order to push their own agenda.

"Saveur rancide" here. Thanks for the apologies Froggie.

One more point for you to consider. It was Col Rouge who brought up the sterilisation topic. Come on Froggie. There is a difference between logic and rationalisation. Have a rethink and you will see that the right have their end-justifies-the-means folk as well. (Leaves of Grass)

I always try to present indisputable arguments, but alas cannot say I've ever succeeded.

I'v finally gotten around to trawling through all the posts on this thread. Summing up what I have seen the main topics of posts appear to be

- Greenpeace is good
- Greenpeace is bad
- Greenpeace does some good and some harm
- Eating animals is good
- Eating animals is bad
- Col is bad
- Col should be allowed to have his say
- Those who want to fix the worlds problems need to look a bit further than just the wests problems and posters who call Col names deserve to get called names.

Have I missed anything significant?

My own experience in reading Cols posts over a sustained period of time and of involving myself in some exchanges with Col leave me with the following impressions.
- Col is fairly accomodating, he'll generally let you set the playground rules. Be polite to Col and he will generally be polite to you, start playing the man and Col will be in there boots and all. I'm not sure if Col always gets this right but if not who of us does?
- Col believes very strongly in individual freedom and responsibility. I think that the sterilisation thing was Col playing "devils advocate", I find it difficult to imagine Col supporting anything which so reduced personal freedom as compulsary sterilisation (except for proven criminals).
- Col does not see the need to have his own freedoms reduced to cater for the preferences and or actions of others(and visa versa).

Now back to the original topic. Shooting the mesenger is not generally a good strategy, being aware of messengers who take little care about the validity of the message they carry or who present the message as something other than it is is a very wise strategy. That is the core of this issue, did the media behave responsibly in the way it reported the incident or did it allow an anti-whaling stance (which I support) to intefer with truthful reporting?

R0bert