This is the same country that considered allowing pet ambulances to use sirens and stop traffic in order to reduce travel time to the pet hospital.

I know, I am severe and heartless.

I'm Swiss. I'm embarrassed.

I'm so sorry.

You should find this fun

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IShqNTY4QIA

Does there need to be any more proof that our world is run by the mad?

I knew this subconsciously for years ,it is in my dna not to cut the grass. Oh,the horror.

My parents' last dog used to really humiliate the plants around their place. What a bitch.

It must be a significant insult to a plant's dignity to be cut, cooked, chewed, digested, and evacuated unceremoniously.

Perhaps the scientists should begin by studying the dignity of the end product, and work backwards up the "value chain".

I am sure plenty of samples could be made available. Might make a fitting appendix to their report.

It explains my accent.

This gives new meaning to the phrase:

"Tossing the salad"

Does this mean that wheat has a soul?

Does this meen that the Swiss can't smoke weed anymore since that could be considered an indignity?

This is from "www.theonion.com" right? Right!!?

Of course it sounds stupid to claim that plants have "rights" and "dignity". But that is when you have to realize that the people who promote these ideas are not really trying to give dignity and rights to plants: they are trying to undermine the dignity and rights of humans.

if these genius' ever conclude that our toilets have dignity..........we'll be in deep sh!t

"I knew this subconsciously for years ,it is in my dna not to cut the grass. Oh,the horror."

Thanks to Wallyj for the perfect excuse to avoid cutting the grass. I used it this afternoon and my wife ended up mowing the back yard.
That would be the backyard I now live in but I'm being very careful to respect every one of those newly clipped (horribly disfigured??) blades.
NeilD

I'm going to start up, "People for the ethical treatment of plants." I can then show the true horrors of what goes on in a grain mill, a potato processing plant, the cruelty of flash frozen peas and corn, isolation faced by canned peaches and pears, the molestation faced by fresh fruit and vegetables as they are rudely handled by clerks and customers. The agony of rice being slowly boiled.

Ok, ok I'll quit now.

mid island mike

Having decamped to the country of late, I have a biiiig lawn. Accordingly, and in keeping with the Phantom principle of go big or go home, I have become the proud owner of a lawnmower with an 8'6" cutting swath. Five hydraulic cutter heads on independently articulated arms, 4 wheel drive, all run by a big-ass diesel engine. Now THAT is offensive.

Ransomes AR250, its the cat's pajamas baby!

"In other words: It's wrong to genetically alter a plant and render it sterile."

"Switzerland has long kept a tight rein on crop genetics, fearing that a mutant strain might run amok and harm the environment."

Yep...one heavily-fractured worldview, deep in the cognitive dissonance.

Can we wait 'til Tuesday to start treating plants with dignity? I'm planning on peeling, boiling, mashing and drowning 5 pounds of spuds in gravy this weekend, not to mention smothering pumpkin in whipped cream, and I'd like to do both with a clear conscience.

Weight Watchers hasn't got their hooks into you yet, I take it.

When do they set up the VRT's (Vegtable Rights Tribunals)?

Will they be granting refuge to plants fleeing from geneticide in other countries? Or is this just some sort of "be nasty to Nestle's shakedown" so they can hold their heads high at the next meeting of World Navel Gazers For Sustainable Inaction?

You have to be bloody-well kidding me.

Plants' rights?

At the risk of offending someone's dignity, I humbly suggest whoever came with with this idea be quietly taken out behind the shed, and shot.

What about carving pumpkins at Halloween? Do they still allow such disgraceful disfigurement and anthropomorphism?

So these scientists looking to improve crops and end world hunger, or develop new plant based medicines suddenly have to give due diligence to the rights of ragweed and conifers?

I think my dog has the right idea about this...

First PETA now this. Where the hell can I get a sandwich?

The scientist's name is "Beat" Keller. Are you sure this isn't an old April Fools Joke?

BANG

That "bang" you heard was Darrell's head exploding after being exposed to a dangerously high level of stupidity in a short time: first Dion's botched interview, then Dion blaming Harper for mentioning it, now plant dignity.

I humbly suggest whoever came with with this idea be quietly taken out behind the shed, and shot.

What, and frighten the crabgrass?

The age old question about vegetarians, ie, are they vegetarians because they love animals or because they hate plants, takes on new significance.

Haters!

We have, as a race, gone insane. Time to secede dominion of the earth to the marsupials.

Someone mentioned the Onion, and if this news was from the Onion.
That's a good point, but it brings up other questions.
Fer instance, did anyone ask the noble onion plant whether it's dignity was offended by being the name of a satirical internet news site?
Someone owes the tasty garnish an apology!

Carrot juice is MURDER!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmK0bZl4ILM

"...in a written application to the government..."

I expect the Swiss to announce the creation of the Flora Right Committee (FRC), to administer punishment to any violators of flora dignity.

Swiss - more politically correct than Canadians, eh?

I really enjoyed reading this, while the lettuce, carrot strips, and almonds went screaming down my throat...

There are those that will not eat meat.
Soon there will be those that will not eat plants.
What is it that those who subscribe to both, will eat?

twould seem this is appropriate....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmK0bZl4ILM

Broccoli? I would agree that no one should eat the stuff ... please stop the farmers from exploiting this beautiful, beautiful plant!!!!

Any place you see the word "dignity", you know insanity is not far behind. Look at any Supreme Court of Canada decision or activist op-ed piece for incontrovertible proof.

floraphobia

Today, with the aid of my old and trusty combine, I detached several million oat plants from the roots to which they had clung all summer. We then transported and confined the seeds to a differernt location. I just now discovered that the whole procedure was probably unethical. When I think that I have been involved in this unholy activity for 57 years........... Oh !!!! the shame and the guilt.

Abortion is perfectly fine but it is "immoral to arbitrarily harm plants by, say, "decapitation of wildflowers at the roadside without rational reason.""

That's quite a country.

What precisely constitutes a dignified flower? A tweed jacket and a corn-cob pipe, perhaps?

Len Pryor,

Good news - That and a couple of pedo charges and 1 or 2 murders will get a couple of months in jail.

Bad news - If that's the best you can do ... maybe 6 months and a hefty fine.

Have these same boffins looked at the deliberate genocide directed by the UN itself against the smallpox and polio viruses? Or the HIV virus? What ever happened to viral rights? And what of the bacteria -- Y. pestis. Dammit, bubonic plague has rights too, doesn't it?

Good thing John Calvin didn't live to see this day. He would surely have wept.

video of plant indignity via Ransomes AR250

www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDmr-KuXoqY&feature=related

make the grass BLEED!

Those that abandon, “And God said, Let us make man in our image, …: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.” and then try to create their own framework for moral living have a big task ahead of themselves. Things can get convoluted and tricky. It must be very stressful for those who perceive themselves to be rational and logical in other areas of their lives to end up where they are here.
But maybe we don’t have the whole text of their regulations. Perhaps they are still allowed to modify English ivy and Virginia creepers.

Unreal.
These people have no concept of what a real problem is do they?
Mad world indeed.

And, WHOA phantom, that's a beast to have!
Love it, I'm on a gas farter craftsman rider this year, just moved and it came with the place, need it here.
Must confess I slaughter acres of vegetation bi-weekly, but I slow down for the little hoppers to get out of the way.
:)

'There was Mr Edward Carpenter, who thought we should in a very short time return to Nature, and live simply and slowly as the animals do. And Edward Carpenter was followed by James Pickie, D.D. (of Pocahontas College), who said that men were immensely improved by grazing, or taking their food slowly and continuously, after the manner of cows. And he said that he had, with the most encouraging results, turned city men out on all fours in a field covered with veal cutlets. Then Tolstoy and the Humanitarians said that the world was growing more merciful, and therefore no one would ever desire to kill. And Mr Mick not only became a vegetarian, but at length declared vegetarianism doomed ("shedding," he called it finely, "the green blood of the silent animals"), and predicted that men in a better age would live on nothing but salt. And then came the pamphlet from Oregon (where the thing was tried), the pamphlet called "Why should Salt suffer?", and there was more trouble.'

-- GK Chesterton, The Napoleon of Notting Hill

hey shaken 8:13 PM :

AMEN BROTHER!!!!!!!!!!!

As I keep reminding vegans every chance I get: "For you to live, something must die. For you to be unwilling to kill, means you must be willing to be food for something else. Decide soon, They're waiting, and they're hungry...".

Yesterday I ethnic cleansed my lawn. Yes, I am an unrepentant vegist! Or is it florist?

Today the 1st Bethany Irregular Chain Saw Regiment will be launching a frontal offensive on the local Manitoba Maples Freedom Front terrorist group.

This will be followed up by a New Holland Cavalry Brigade performing a scorched earth policy on the back forty.

No fluffy kittens or leaf blowers will be damaged in these attacks.

The leguminous cabal in the ghetto known colloquially as "the lawn" refer to me as "chemical Ali". I hear them whispering about it at night, amidst the screams of those not genetically pure enough to avoid "selection"

I planted herbs amongst the perennials in the gardens, to remind them, and especially those itinerant vagabond weeds that loiter where they are not wanted, that the wails of the parsley could be their wails too, if they don't toe the borders and wander where their kind are not welcome.
I remind the flowers regularly to be grateful for what they are - they know what happened to the rabbits who terrorized their neighbourhood this summer. They are beholden to me, and they know it.

:)

first they came for the meat...but i wasn't a pork chop....then they came for the milk but i was a nursing mother.....then they came for the grains and legumes..........

well....you get the idea.

it's apparent these dedicated activists missed the holocaust of the green revolution in the 60's AND the wholesale worldwide butchery of mosquitoes(every one of which had a mother) throughout the twentieth century...

oh well...better late than never.

Mere words fail me but if I could muster a comment to this it would be "WTF?".

Canadian feminists that are making big bucks working as lawyers, judges and doctors for years now delegated nonprofitable tasks in life like pregancy and childbirth to their poor sisters living on welfare. They used to harvest their poor sisters in the name of "best interest of the child".
Facing growing resistance of the breeders (harvested mothers) they decided to develop an alternate hosts that they could use in order to maintain their lifestyles. Latest concept is to try to use genetically modified pigs to carry pregnancy of human pets. Plan is to use eggs donated by redfems, sperm collected from supermsculine homosexuals (top stallions) conduct in vitro fertilisation and implant human embryos into gen-mod pigs and grow human pets in litters of five at the time.

If animal rights activists get a wind of this latest initiative and start to make a big fuss about exploitation of pigs it might turn out that all that effort will go down the drain and CAS will have to start resorting to use of the firearms when they visit Ontarion maternity wards on their human harvesting trips.

Somebody, somewhere always has to pay for dignity of animals and plants.

This would explain the slothful egocentricity of the flora, cannabis sativa.
It is perpetually stoned on itself.

For opponents of abortion there may be a benefit to these arguments. Laws that protect the "rights" of tuna fish and petunias can be used to protect fetuses.

Ahhh...Friday nite at the local SDA pub...who has more fun than this bunch!! All these creative juices flowing in one place...well it's enough to make you ask...when do we get the farts and vulture money?...oops..I means arts and culture...

And Atwood and Suzuki didn't even show up... they were probably tied up at some gaia worship fest...guvament funded no doubt!
good thing,eh?They'd just be party poopers.
What...no body asked them...??!!

Give me GK Chesterton any time!With this combination of Good Book wisdom and humour we will survive!

This is the inevitable result of the devolution from Popeye to Sponge Bob Square Pants.

Shaken:

Vegetables & Proctology, who would have thought they could be mixed in a sentence?
Clever little bon mot!

You MUST all join PERV

People for the Ethical Regard of Vegetables

* How would you like to be separated from your nether regions, plunged into a boiling cauldron of oil or water and then eaten?

* How would you like to have your genitalia cut off and used to decorate churches, houses and the bosoms of human females?

* How would you like to have your unborn children put in a mill and ground up over the corpses of related species?

* How would you like to have your head cut off so that people can play football on you?

* And it’s a matter of your own health. Do you realise that leguminous vegetables such as peas and beans fix deadly nitrogen from the air, which could give you cancer?

Act now! Send a large cheque to the Number Watch Cayman Island account to become a member of PERV. In return you will receive a free catalogue of synthetised proteins, carbohydrates, vitamins and fibre (no fat, of course) with price list. Leave the flowers where they are in the field. You know it makes scents.

http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/2002%20February.htm

The Brits had it right a long time ago and of course Traffic did it best: John Barleycorn Must Die
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-q4LvXZNOuI