Category Archives: Wacky Mentality

Wacky Mentality: In NZ, claim made that clubing seals does not cause pain

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An animal-cruelty case in New Zealand has taken a wacky twist, as the accused is denying he did anything wrong.

On the one hand – fur seals are protected under the Marine Mammals Protection Act. And then there’s the nation’s Animal Welfare Act, where suffering is the key issue.

The accused is charged with “ill-treating” and killing 23 New Zealand fur seals. The Marlborough Express reports the man’s lawyer says he would have pleaded guilty under the Marine Mammals Protection Act. But he’s denying he made the seals suffer.

And get this from the article:

Defence lawyer David Clark contended it was possible all the seals were killed or knocked out instantly, and would therefore not have felt any pain before they died, some after being hit a second time.

So even if he had to strike the seals a second time, they claim no suffering was involved. The claim stretches far beyond the boundaries of science and reason. So it easily earns a Wacky Mentality Award.

 

PACK MENTALITY BLOG: Compassion - teamed with Science and Logic

Wacky Mentality Award: Judge G. Todd Baugh

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It’s a bit off the beaten path for this blog, but I have to award a Wacky Mentality Award to Montana Judge G. Todd Baugh.

He is the judge who sentenced a rapist to 30 days in prison for an act perpetrated against a 14-year-old girl. Baugh’s initial statement suggested the girl had as much control over the situation as the rapist. It is beyond belief that a judge, who should be on bench to protect the innocent, would make such an asinine statement.

And of course, handing down such as weak sentence is a slap in the face to victims of sexual violence everywhere.

But now, Baugh is backtracking and is calling for a new sentencing hearing. He suddenly suggests that state law requires a two-year mandatory minimum prison term in cases such as this.

So he’s a judge and didn’t know this during  the initial sentencing. Was he so quick to let the rapist off the hook with a slap on the wrist that he failed to look up basic sentencing guidelines? – Really? At least we might see justice better served in the coming days.

Our criminal justice system needs a big overall, with a mission to protect the innocent.

 

PACK MENTALITY BLOG: Compassion - teamed with Science and Logic

Wacky Mentality in greyhound racing

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The greyhound racing industry is one of the leaders in examples of Wacky Mentality. We have a new entry today in the series, this time out of Ireland.

The Independent.ie reported Wednesday on its website about an injured greyhound with a broken leg. One individual was quoted as saying:

“He probably could come back, but he wouldn’t be as good as he was. It wouldn’t be fair to the dog and I want him to finish racing by leaving us with good memories.”

It wouldn’t be fair to the dog? – Really? – How about the fact that it would have been fair to the dog to not force him to race in the first place. And notice it’s really about the memories the racing insiders have – not about the welfare of the dog.

It’s called Wacky Mentality.

 

PACK MENTALITY BLOG: Compassion - teamed with Science and Logic

Wacky Mentality: Group decides “aerial culling” is humane

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This story comes out of Australia, where the Central Land Council supports the killing of wild horses from helicopters, in the Northern Territory. ABC News reports 3,500 horses were shot and killed through this brutal method over five days back in May.

The council claims a study was performed, with a finding that the average time to death was eight seconds and they claimed 58 percent of around 2000 horses died instantaneously. And they measured the pursuit time, or the period of time from the point the horses heard the death choppers coming, until they were shot. The claim there was 73 seconds.

With these so-called results, the claim is being made that the process is humane – especially when compared with hunting the horses down and killing them from ground.

No comparison was made apparently to NOT killing them or figuring out a way to control the populations through truly humane methods. But as we see too often around the globe, killing animals is the only thing some people can consider to solve a problem.

But getting back to the point, it is definitely a Wacky Mentality to suggest chasing down a horse from the air to shoot it is humane. Who thinks like that?

 

PACK MENTALITY BLOG: Compassion - teamed with Science and Logic

Another wild statement made concerning another animal-cruelty case

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I’m forced to bring back the Wacky Mentality Award. It’s bad enough to read news stories about animal-cruelty cases. But when people in positions of responsibility act in ways that let criminals off the hook, it’s just too much to comprehend.

In Washington State, a man was charged with blowing up his daughters dog, because he got mad at her. But Undersherriff Dave Cox told ABC News the charges were dropped because the prosecutor felt the dog died instantaneously, so therefore they thought it didn’t suffer. The prosecutor seems to be concerned about the verbiage in the state’s animal cruelty statute.

So the message to criminals in the state is – If you want to kill your pet, just blow it up and the state won’t have a problem with it. Killing pets by explosion is legal in Washington State.

This is what happens when the focus on science education falls off the table. What aspect of animal cruelty does the prosecutor not understand? Does he believe a murder committed where the victim dies right away is less of a crime?

I don’t know what he’s thinking, but the prosecutor deserves a Wacky Mentality Award.

 

PACK MENTALITY BLOG: Compassion - teamed with Science and Logic

Finding the Abominable Snowman before the end of the world

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I found an article on a local website last night, noting a few … well … people I guess … were stocking up supplies for the end of the world, coming up in Wacko Land on Friday.

If the world is going to come to an end, why stock up? You won’t be here. Unless you can take canned goods and gold nuggets and your tinfoil hats into the afterlife, that stuff will become pointless at best.

But then, I was walking through the Christmas Forest of Wonderland and found this creature – the Abominable Snowman of the North:

Abominable-Snowman

Supporters of pet store puppy sales call the rest of us “anti-pets”

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We have a double-winner this week. The Pet Industry Joint Advisory Council (PIJAC) gets both a Wacky Mentality Award and a Pack of Putrid Punditry Award for calling the movement to end the sale of puppy mill puppies – an “anti-pet movement.”

The reference is actually to the banning of the sale of puppies in pet stores, which is really, basically the same thing.

The statement and others were highlighted in an article posted on PetProductNews.com.

I thought I’d heard it all in watching political debates over the past decades. But this one has to take a special place in the annals of idiocy. It would be like calling laws to protect kids from child abuse – an “anti-child-birth movement.”

So let’s get this straight. Some people think that an effort to ensure that breeders take proper care of their breeding dogs and cats means people who love dogs and cats don’t want people to include dogs and cats in their families? – Huuh?

But the article does shine the light on why some in the “pet industry” don’t want to shut down the sale of puppy mill dogs. Michael Maddox, PIJAC’s vice president of governmental affairs was quoted as saying – “Clearly, if we have fewer pets, you’re going to see the industry adversely affected because we’re going to see less demand for pet products and see less sales.”

So some industry insiders equate fewer puppy mill puppies being sold with fewer sales of pet products. That’s an important admission. What these people don’t understand or don’t have the capacity to understand is the fact that millions of dogs and cats are dying EVERY YEAR in shelters across the nation.

Millions of available pets – from pure bred dogs and cats of all varieties to the great and wonderful mutt and standard stray cat – never find homes each year. We are VERY far from having a supply problem for pets in this economic equation.

What we do have is suffering problem and anyone fighting against legislation to ease this suffering is either completely uninformed, guided only by profit or is lacking in a compassion gene.

In the article noted about, Maddox was also quoted as saying – “There is no single best place to get an animal.”

Wow. Unbelievable. To call this one-dimensional and out of touch would be an understatement. The top two places “to get” a pet are shelters and rescue organizations.

Four troubling animal cruelty stories in one Pack News Wire report

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Four news accounts of animal cruelty crossed the Pack News Wire this morning. The first thoughts that came to mind are two of our regular awards – the Wacky Mentality Award and the Haley Barbour Soft-on-Crime Award.

Man charged with dragging puppy: A Chicago man has been charged with dragging a puppy down the sidewalk, leaving a trail of blood. The Chicago Tribune reports the man told police – “This is how you teach a dog to walk.” – Wacky Mentality Award

Police officer cited for beating death of cat: A police officer in Maryland was given just a $50 fine for beating an injured cat to death with his nightstick. – Haley Barbour Soft-on-Crime Award

Tennessee man accused of torturing dog for four hours: A charge of aggravated animal cruelty is out for a man accused of torturing a four-pound dog for four hours. He allegedly threw the dog down a staircase, tried to drown her and then put her in a clothes dryer for several minutes, during the long process of killing her.

Man shoots dog; doesn’t know where he lives: An Idaho man shot a stray dog on his property and was charged with animal cruelty and discharging a firearm in city limits. He called KPVI News 6 to offer his side of the story, which involved admitting he didn’t call animal control because he didn’t know he lived within the city limits.
And because he didn’t know he lived within city limits, he didn’t know he’d be charged with firing his gun there. The local media should ask him if he recalls paying city property taxes at any point in time.

New Series: Wacky Mentality

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When I find stories that are over-the-top crazy – or wacky – they will henceforth fall into the new series category – Wacky Mentality.

Today, we have a story of man out to shoot a raccoon trapped inside a cage. Divine intervention stepped in to protect the innocent animal.

Opposing Views reports his first shot ricocheted off of the cage frame and struck the shooter in what was described as “the lower abdomen area.” He then dropped the gun and it discharged again, with the second shot hitting him in the same area.

The man will recover, but hopefully his family will take away his gun permit and any weapons he still has.

And the article notes the following – “” The Iowa Department of Natural Resources is investigating, likely to make sure that the man is telling the truth and that the raccoon did not somehow wrestle the gun away from the man and shoot him itself. “”

And then we have the news that an artist in Kansas wants to bring more attention to the plight of chickens – by displaying them in coops at locations across Lawrence – before publicly slaughtering them.

Slaughtering chickens to show how terrible their lives are just doesn’t quite make compassionate sense to me.