In response to the poster who tells us that Sarah Palin does support birth control, I beg to differ. The group Feminists for Life, of which she is a vocal member, is coy on the issue, saying that "some of its members support the use of non-abortifacient birth control methods." But when you dig in to this, you discover that they consider "hormonal birth control" methods, know generally as birth control pills, to be abortifacients. This is a point that needs to be more widely understood. Many anti-abortion activists have as their ultimate goal the restriction of birth control. This explains why they defund programs to support giving out birth control information, and pass laws allowing pharmacists to refuse to fill prescriptions for birth control bills. No big deal for people in cities, you say, you just go to another pharmacy. But for rural women, often that means a very long drive. Women who use birth control pills and are ga ga for Palin because "she is just like me" are in for a shocking surprise if this ignorant person---who is on Youtube speaking in tongues in her church, and believes the world was created 6000 years ago---gets into power.

@alaska5123:

Author Keith Akers, in A Vegetarian Sourcebook (1983), notes that by arguing against the killing of plants, the meat-eater "seeks to reduce vegetarianism to absurdity. If vegetarians object to killing living creatures (it is argued), then logically they should object to killing plants and insects as well as animals. But this is absurd. Therefore, it can’t be wrong to kill animals.

"Fruitarians take the argument concerning plants quite seriously; they do not eat any food which causes injury or death to either animals or plants. This means, in their view, a diet of those fruits, nuts and seeds which can be eaten without the destruction of the plant that produces the food.

"Finding an ethically significant line between plants and animals, though, is not particularly difficult. Plants have no evolutionary need to feel pain, and completely lack a central nervous system. Nature does not create pain gratuitously, but only when it enables the organism to survive. Animals, being mobile, would benefit from having a sense of pain; plants would not."

In determining a boundary between sentient and insentient life, Peter Singer in Animal Liberation suggests that "somewhere between a shrimp and an oyster seems as good a place to draw the line as any, and better than most."

Keith Akers states further, "Even if one does not want to become a fruitarian and believes that plants have feelings (against all evidence to the contrary), it does not follow that vegetarianism is absurd. We ought to destroy as few plants as possible. And by raising and eating an animal for food, many more plants are destroyed indirectly by the animals we eat than if we merely ate the plants directly."

(Meat-eaters indirectly kill ten times more plants than do vegetarians!)

"What about insects?" asks Akers, "While there may be reason to kill insects, there is no reason to kill them for food. One distinguishes between the way meat animals are killed for food and the way insects are killed.

"Insects are killed only when they intrude upon human territory, posing a threat to the comfort, health, or well-being of humans. There is a huge difference between ridding oneself of intruders and going out of one's way to find and kill something which would otherwise be harmless."

According to Akers:

"These questions may have a certain fascination for philosophers, but most vegetarians are not bothered by them. For any vegetarian who is not a biological pacifist, there would not seem to be any particular difficulty in distinguishing ethically between insects and plants on the one hand, and animals and humans on the other."

I'd like to see a return to organic farming. In 1989, concern over the use of the pesticide Alar on apples caused many Americans to consider organic produce. We produce pesticides at a rate some 13,000 times faster than we did in the 1950s. Our environment is being flooded by pesticide compounds.

Poisons used to kill insects accumulate on crops, in the soil and in greater concentration in the tissues of living creatures higher on the food chain. The EPA's Pesticide Monitoring Journal reports that "Foods of animal origin (are) the major source of pesticide residues in the diet."

In his Pulitzer Prize nominated book, How to Survive in America the Poisoned, pesticide authority Lewis Regenstein writes: "Meat contains approximately 14 times more pesticides than do plant foods...Thus, by eating foods of animal origin, one ingests greatly concentrated amounts of hazardous chemicals."

A 1976 study by the EPA found the breast milk of mothers who consume animal products to be 50 to 100 times more contaminated by pesticide residues than the milk of vegetarian or vegan mothers.

Organic farming and Integrated Pest Management (IPM) are getting more attention today. These utilize natural insect controls, such as predatory insects, weather, crop rotation, pest-resistant varieties, soil tillage, and other environmentally safe practices.

A 1979 Department of Agriculture task force of scientists and economists came to "...positive conclusions on the importance of organic farming and its potential contributions to agriculture and society." Until the end of the Second World War, American farmers produced bountiful harvests without relying on pesticides. There is no reason why America cannot do so again.

This ignoble POlitical WHore PolHoe knows how to play a deceitful hand of cards. She stacks everything in her favor and then lies like a filthy stinking rug. She butchers god's good creatures. She is a foul soul.

ignoble - adjective

the ignoble tradition of mudslinging dishonorable, unworthy, base, shameful, contemptible, despicable, dastardly, vile, degenerate, shabby, sordid, mean; improper, unprincipled, discreditable; humble, low, lowly, common, plebeian.adjective

the ignoble tradition of mudslinging dishonorable, unworthy, base, shameful, contemptible, despicable, dastardly, vile, degenerate, shabby, sordid, mean; improper, unprincipled, discreditable; humble, low, lowly, common, plebeian.

You do understand, I hope, that the Governor of a state does not make the recommendation to thin out herds of deer, or packs of wolfs. There is a state regulatory agency that does this. If you want to be accurate, you can also check out the permits to kill polar bears given out by Canada. We have a special hunting season for deer in CT where permits are given out in a lottery. Overpopulation occurs when life is too easy for animals such as deer so hunting is allowed. Wolfs have been shot in other states, moved to other areas, and recently, some have been returned to the wild. Some ranchers are unhappy with this based upon the loss of calves.

That a plane is used makes sense since Alaska is a vast state. I believe several other states also use planes - to manage the animal population. Food is dropped. Animals are counted. You can't do it on foot.

You either approve of hunting or you do not. If you don't, then you will object to Palin's agreeing to proposed policies from Alaska's Wildlife agency. Conservation sometimes demands that we think with our common sense rather than our emotions. Rather than just complain about Palin, please take some time to investigate the issue.