Peter Singer.

No-one?

i loved his sweing machines?

so i'll bite, who is this guy? aside from the #1 name in sewing machines?

He's a professor that wrote "Animal Liberation", which is pretty much the PETA handbook. Yuck. Crap.

Hey, Toomany, had a blast in DC, my pals live in the Pentagon district of Arlington, had a joyride, the DC vibes were excellent.
Saw the Spy Museum, the WW2 Memorial, the Viet Nam Memorial, etc. It was humid and hot as hell, damn! Great food there. We even saw the Finn Bros at the 930 Club. 4 Split Endz songs were played.
Scored a Greco Flying V w/ a glued- in neck at a shop called Action Guitars, nice folks.
No half smokes were consumed..Next time for sure.

Jay

check this one out... in a couple days i'll be driving up to philly to buy a Redline bike. Redline... now is this bizarre or what?

yeah, DC vibe is interesting and cool, though after a while it seems to bear it's snotty teeth at you. snarky. everybody here's so snotty and snarky. very elitist town. it has corrupted me! it's DC's fault!

there's certainly a bunch of stuff to do here in town, though i must say, i found the food supply here sorely lacking compared to sweet home chicago. that's one thing that always got me down about this town, the way the restaurants and bars are so densely pocketed in so few places, and the selection doesn't really suit me so good (i.e. no pizza worth a damn in this entire town, with one exception that's a few miles from where i live. i mean, c'mon). the hot/humid thing is definite minus, probably my least favorite thing about this town.

but if you're big into the whole "culture" thing, with the museums and the monuments and stuff, there is a whole bunch of that here. you like the spy museum? did you do that part right in the beginning, where you can try and climb through the ductwork and see if you can do it silently? that place was quite cool. spy culture, now that's what i'm talkin about!

I just thought with all the space you guys give to Michael Moore you may have been aware of/interested in this bloke as he has just written a book about George Bush, specifically, analysing Bush's ethics.

If any of you American citizens are interested, this is a good page on him:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Singer

Go on, it's Wednesday, give yer brain a whirl.

Crap, with a high waffle factor. He wrote/said some really good things on ethics and doesn't sound insane when he talks.

But you know this dude's had an ape girlfriend or two.

Redline wrote:He's a professor that wrote "Animal Liberation", which is pretty much the PETA handbook. Yuck. Crap.

Why so?

Singer is a principled guy who follows everything through to a conclusion. Often enough, that conclusion is one that makes people uncomfortable, even if they agree with the reasoning behind it. I consider this important work, because it expects and requires dilligence to comprehend or critique it, and when there isn't any, the critique is emblematic of shoddy, non-rigorous thinking.

Here's an example:

Animals are conscious of their circumstances, can feel pain and display fear. > This is why we recognize mistreatment of animals as cruelty. > This state of awareness demarks whether or not killing something is cruel. > Babies and the severely mentally handicapped are not sentient in this way. > Killing babies or the severely handicapped is less cruel than killing conscious animals.

See what I mean? He makes you follow him through pure thought to a conclusion that gives you the heebie-geebies, yet you have to concede each point along the way.

The fact that PETA is a retarded organization doesn't negate the ethical connundrum that is brought to light by the thinking. I eat all things, including animals, but I'd be lying if I said I never thought about the act of killing them. I think Peter Singer has put his finger on why. I simply suppress those thoughs while I eat. It's people like Singer who make me admit that I have the thoughts in the first place.

I also like that he draws only a living wage, putting the rest of his salary to the use of people who have less money available to them. He's living-up to his conclusions.

Not crap, Peter Singer.

I had a teacher once refer to Singer's views on euthanasia as 'the thin end of the wedge'.

Not Crap.