800-POUND HUNTERS

Chronic Wasting Disease continues to turn up in deer in new states, the latest being Utah, along with more in New Mexico (which I hadn't mentioned previously). Even as states try to eradicate the deer, hunters are wearying of all the complications and numbers are dwindling - to the point that a Washington Times columnist laments that the future could be bleak for hunters. Gee, let's hope so. At least this dude admits the real reason hunting continues to get preferential treatment from the US government in its various game-commission guises: "In the money department, the hunting community is the 800-pound gorilla in a pen full of squirrel monkeys." Other than the insult to gorillas' intelligence - I don't see them practicing a beer-soaked "sport" that depends on senseless slaughter - that analogy sounds just right.

CHALK UP ONE MORE

A step toward "curing" cancer was made in lab tests on cancer cells, when a substance was found that kills lung cancer cells and prevents healthy lung cells from becoming cancerous. The compound, Deguelin, is found where? In plants, of course.

STANDARD DOUBLE STANDARDS

One of the few amusing things about animal exploitation is people's attempts to maintain the illusory dichotomy of animals whose death is wrong, and those whose death is of no consequence. For instance, some in San Diego are aghast at the method some poultry ranchers are using to kill thousands of chickens: wood-chipping machines. Yeah, that's pretty gruesome - but don't these same people give a damn that male just-hatched chicks are routinely tossed in an electric shredder? What's the diff? Similarly, as more people become aware that zoos are selling "surplus" animals to canned hunts, some say "If we can see animals in zoos one day and they end up as rugs on the floor the next, that's wrong." Yes, it sure is. But is it right if we didn't see the animal in a zoo the day before? Howcum? And why is it OK to skin cows alive as they howl in pain every single day, but doing the same to bunny rabbits is a crime? Oh, is it because the latter was being done in front of children?

HAMBURGER HELL

The McDonalds lawsuit has been refiled, and as predicted here, McDonald's woes continue to mount. This past week its stock price dipped below $13 for the first time in living memory, and analysts are busy expounding on how fast the company is going down the tubes, some sticking to more genteel phrasing such as "Luster dims for the golden arches" and others going straight to terminology like "Hamburger Hell."