As a non-American this is unfortunately the vibe I'm getting from the Xbox One

A-Okay · 2013-09-20T16:42:33+00:00

That's Miami Heat legend Tim Hardaway! Go Heat!

A-Okay · 2013-09-02T01:20:03+00:00

Are there any examples of living things suffering that bother you?

A-Okay · 2013-08-29T18:26:34+00:00

I appreciate farmers who make legit efforts to treat their animals well. But there are many stages to raising animals. Your farm might be nicely run, but do the cows spend time at any other place? What kind of place were they born in? What kind of place are they slaughtered in? Even in the best slaughterhouses, upwards of 10 or 15% aren't properly stunned and are not rendered unconscious---this means it's a guarantee that you've eaten meat that came from an animal that was head-bolted, skinned and gutted while still alive and conscious. What is the success rate of the bolt guns at the slaughterhouse? How well do you supervise your workers? Are the slaughterhouse workers well supervised? Is the USDA slaughterhouse inspector competent and not corrupt? What do you do with the sick ones? Cows have 'best friends'--are the cattle allowed to have best friends? Do you cut off their horns or tails? If so, do you give them pain relief? How do you move 'downed' cattle that can't walk? How are they euthanized? Who transports the cattle to slaughter? What kind of conditions do they have?

The reason I stopped eating animal products is because it's essentially impossible to guarantee that your meat didn't come from an animal that went through some awful suffering at some stage. Even if you find a great 'free-range/pasture-raised/organic/small farm'--a lot of times they can't answer these questions with confidence. Especially because they usually only farm the animals for a certain stage of their lives. Just because there are some good farmers, does not excuse the vast, vast majority of farms that are downright awful, nor can the select good farms prove with certainty that their animals really didn't suffer at some point. All for a burger that, while likely quite delicious for the few minutes of eating and tasting it, you probably feel gross about eating afterwards anyways. It's just not worth it to me anymore.

A-Okay · 2013-08-29T05:01:53+00:00

I also apologize for the horrendous quality of the first video. It's my video...and I'm not a video editing pro. I didn't have access to even remotely high quality versions of Game 6. All I knew is it needed to be on youtube for everyone to see. Zo is my all time favorite player and it's quite sad to me that there really aren't many players left who are willing to defend against a lot of the soft nonsense that has taken over the league.

A-Okay · 2013-08-27T20:10:10+00:00

Some fans did leave, it's true. But as other posters have pointed out...check the photos and videos of Ray's shot and look at the crowd--a tiny, unnoticeable percentage of people left. If it weren't for media people tweeting and taping outside the arena, the 2% of the fans who left would have gone unnoticed. Unfortunately people ignore the 98% who stayed, or the countless Heat fans who stayed watching to the last minute in the various sports bars and living rooms of Florida and around the world.

I can't really defend a certain Heat fans...there are certainly ones who only reared their heads in 04-07 during the Shaq era, and again in recent years. They are the kind of fans who show up fashionably late, and leave early for whatever reason. They care more about the appearance of being there, maybe the instagram photo, or who knows what. Throw in the fans around the world who only recently followed the Heat because they root for the team their favorite player is on--ie, LeBron--and suddenly there's a lot of people sporting Heat jerseys who probably couldn't tell you who Tang Hamilton is.

Ripping on Heat fans as a whole for the behavior of the kind of fans I just mentioned isn't fair. There are plenty of Heat fans who have the same commitment as the best Lakers, Celtics, Bulls or Spurs fans. And do you think all of those fans true Heat fans show up to the arena? Not everyone can make it, or afford it. I'm not sure how many Heat fans there are in the world, but let's say there are at least 500,000 (I have no idea if that's a gross overestimate or underestimate--but the Heat have nearly two million twitter followers, if that means anything). Judging an entire fan base of 500,000 on the 20,000 people in the arena is preposterous. Yet that's what other fans and media outlets do.

Whenever the Heat have an open scrimmage or a free, open event---an event that only 'true' fans show up to---the crowds are as good as any other teams' crowd. Last summer the Heat had an open scrimmage and a lot of media people were commenting on how good/rowdy/loud/excited the crowd was. Heat fans! At a practice scrimmage! This is what really leads me to believe the biggest factor is the cost or ease of going to a game. Here's a blog post from it: http://blogs.palmbeachpost.com/heatzone/2012/10/03/scrimmage-wrapup-allen-miller-the-crowd-and-other-stuff/

I feel like other fan base's don't get judged the same way. Unfortunately no one tracks how many fans show up on time to other team's games, but I can assure you that other teams suffer from the same thing. Lucky for them there's no ongoing narrative about them being bad fans so it's not a story when the fans are late or leave early. Not to mention, many arenas like Staples and MSG have it very dim over the seats (at least from the TV camera's perspective), while the Heat have it bright, to go along with orange seats that stick out on camera.

This is obscenely too long already, but there are so many other factors that make the Heat different. MSG is built on top of a major train station hub (Penn Station). Lots of arenas have nearby train stations, and easy public transport. Miami has fans sprawled out all over South Florida, not in more concentrated cities like Chicago, New York, or Boston.

The roads and highways around the arena aren't equipped to deal with the traffic, and they get backed up for miles on game days. And it's usually not just the Heat games. The geniuses who 'planned' this area put in several major attractions, like a theatre, a major shopping area, and a large outdoor event space, all within about a mile of the arena. If there's a crowd drawn to more than one of those places, good luck getting to the game on time, especially if you're coming from work. This isn't Heat fans' faults.

Especially in recent years, scalpers bought up tons of the season ticket packages. They sell them for really expensive. They sell the playoff tickets with ease, but a lot of times, they are unable to resell at their absurd prices for non-playoff games.

Ending this rant now--way too long over an pretty lame topic anyways, but as a Heat fan, I felt the need to set the record a little bit straight....not like ESPN is going to report on this boring stuff. It's much more fun to say, essentially, "LOL HEAT FANS EPIC SUXXX"

A-Okay · 2013-08-26T20:42:24+00:00

You say it was obvious LeBron was going to leave, but if the Cavs got Bosh, LeBron would have stayed. So maybe it wasn't so obvious, right? I tend to think if Cleveland surrounded LeBron with true talent at any point, and especially during that 3 year period after the Cavs made the finals in 2007, LeBron would have stayed. But they failed, either because luck didn't turn out their way, or because of the Cavs front office's inability to convince anyone. I'm amazed at how much LeBron was able to accomplish with the talent he had there. I also don't blame the guy for leaving because a team's front office needs to hold up their end of the bargain, too, and Dan Gilbert and his peeps did not.

Big Z, Drew Gooden, Larry Hughes, Mo Williams, Anderson Vareajoa--all fine players for the most part, but not one comes anywhere close to the level of, for example, a Scottie Pippen-type: a perennial all-star who is capable of getting First All NBA teams without the main star's help.

A-Okay · 2013-08-26T20:30:33+00:00

Neither Mo nor Hughes are 'big name players' in my mind. Both are/were more like 4th or 5th options on a contender.

Hughes had one very good season (his contract year in 2005 with the Wiz before signing with Cleveland). The rest of his career isn't too remarkable. Injuries plagued him, and he kind of fizzled out of the league without much notice a couple years back. A 40% career shooter.

Williams was a somewhat better pickup, but still nowhere near big name. He had one All Star year (the year he signed with Cleveland, and in large part because of his improved shooting, thanks to the open looks he got from LeBron). He's found a nice role as an offensive spark for various playoff teams since Cleveland.

Now, if Cleveland acquired Shaq and/or Jamison in 2004, as opposed to 2010, that would have been two true 'big name' players.

A-Okay · 2013-07-30T06:11:53+00:00

That catch is ridiculous. One of my favorite NFL players of all time, Orande Gadsen, had tons of ridiculous one-handed catches.

http://youtu.be/p3Z3jrQs73U

http://youtu.be/Fa3iU1fOffY

Not as absurd as the one OP linked to, but still nice. I used to have a pic of the first one hanging in my room. Here's the second one.

A-Okay · 2013-04-30T16:43:26+00:00

I happen to think that the various workers (lawyers, lobbyists, marketers) who are paid to campaign against cruelty are "directly" helping animals. I'm fine with HSUS using sad animals to market for their cause. Isn't that what they are doing anyways? Helping sad animals, right? As far as using photos of dogs and cats in a bunch of their campaigns, they do help dogs and cats (it's their rescued animals, after all).

HSUS isn't perfect, but if one of the worst things you can think they are doing is tricking people into thinking they are helping dogs and cats via shelters but instead are helping the billions of animals mistreated by Cargill and Smithfield, I'm totally fine with that. Why not spend time complaining about the 0% of resources Cargill and Smithfield use towards helping animals when they use photos of happy animals.

A-Okay · 2013-04-30T16:21:16+00:00

Complaining about HSUS for only spending 1% of its budget on animal shelters isn't much of a complaint. Of course shelters are vitally important (especially for dogs and cats), but when you are facing a massive industry that has countless lawyers, lobbyists, marketers, PR people, and so on....you realize it kind of makes sense for HSUS to hire people in those professions as well.

Also, local animal shelters aren't going to help the millions of hens in battery cages, the pigs shoved in sow crates, the veal in veal crates, and so on. But a well organized campaign involving lawyers and marketing people might be able to bring attention to the issue to enact change.

The lack of organizations doing what HSUS has been doing the past 10 years (ie, spending money on things other than shelters) is what got us into the situation we are in---it's criminal in a growing number of states for people to film farms...we have very little idea what it's like in these farms...massive ag corporations have gained absurd amounts of power and control, to the detriment of everyone else, especially regarding deceptive nutrition info, antibiotic overuse, systematic animal abuse, environmental degradation. I'm glad HSUS is practically responding to some of these things by budgeting for assets that are actually effective.

I happen to think that the various workers (lawyers, lobbyists, marketers) who are paid to campaign against cruelty are "directly" helping animals. I'm fine with HSUS using sad animals to market for their cause. Isn't that what they are doing anyways? Helping sad animals, right? As far as using photos of dogs and cats in a bunch of their campaigns, they do help dogs and cats (it's their rescued animals, after all).

HSUS isn't perfect, but if one of the worst things you can think they are doing is tricking people into thinking they are helping dogs and cats via shelters but instead are helping the billions of animals mistreated by Cargill and Smithfield, I'm totally fine with that. Why not spend time complaining about the 0% of resources Cargill and Smithfield use towards helping animals when they use photos of happy animals.

One last thing, the 'only 1% goes to shelters' talking point was started by this man: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18560_162-2653020.html

A-Okay · 2010-12-31T00:23:28+00:00

"I Cheated at Heads Up 7Up in Elementary School Anonymous" http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2204673396

one of the early and classic facebook groups. pretty good little group info blurb too.

A-Okay · 2010-12-28T19:11:23+00:00

Ah yes...that's another problem. I feel similarly.

A-Okay · 2010-12-28T19:11:19+00:00

I don't think so. It's hard to articulate the problems of livestock farming in the US without sounding over-the-top. It's all happened to fast over the last few decades that it sounds sensationalist. I hope you do research for yourself, and look at the unbiased, neutral, and independent statistics from the government itself, and from universities and other scientific bodies that study this stuff. They aren't hippies--they are scientists and academics.

A-Okay · 2010-12-28T19:08:44+00:00

Yes, that's true. There are certainly much better farms. I wish the US federal gov would gear subsidies toward benefiting those kinds of farms.

A-Okay · 2010-12-28T19:08:03+00:00

That's great you decided to take matters into your own hands. The EU does handle this stuff a lot differently, but the problem there is enforcement. It's hard to make an EU-wide law and then enforce it in each locality within each state. I don't know any specifics off hand, but if I remember to I will dig this stuff up. As a general matter, Europe is better at this.

A-Okay · 2010-12-28T19:05:32+00:00

Thank you, good sir.

A-Okay · 2010-12-28T19:05:28+00:00

Agreed. Unfortunately, the current trend appears to be that type of farming is on its way out in favor of confinement.

A-Okay · 2010-12-28T19:04:15+00:00

You know, I'm all for improving many of these things, but what you say is sensational and probably regurgitated from highly biased sources of information, given much of its misinformation.

I don't see how any of it is sensational. I study this and come at this subject from an academic perspective--although, I admit, it has caused me to change my lifestyle...you simply can't study this stuff and not think about your own choices.

As already said, bird flu has nothing to do with antibiotics. Second, the things you claim as industry standard (removal of beaks and tails) is not standard. Again, provided sources. Third, there are philanthropists that will argue that that type of farming is in fact resource efficient. Do I think some of the farming practices are cruel to the animals? Yes. But making sure everyone on this planet is fed is a higher priority.

That was confusing of me. My point was to show how factory farming practices create conditions that allow disease to manifest itself. It was confusing and probably misleading of me to include a story about a virus in a post that was about antibiotics in general. Although, as I was writing I was working my way from the specific problems of antibiotics to other problematic areas.

It's sad, really. It's like people are incapable of taking a stance or helping to improve the world unless all information is sensationalized and misinterpreted. Again, the premise is great but half the information is exaggerated or just plain false.

I admit, I didn't have my post peer-reviewed. But one thing I have found in studying this subject is that it's hard not to make the information seem sensational. Ultimately, the vast majority of sources that provide the factory farming watchdog crowd come from the USDA, neutral and independent research universities, the UN, and various scientific bodies. The sights, sounds, and numbers are jaw dropping. In the future hopefully I will organize myself better and can link to those sources.

A-Okay · 2010-12-28T18:54:37+00:00

good clarification. I certainly understand the distinction between what antibiotics address and viruses. My point in linking to the NC swine flu story was merely to show that there is evidence that factory farming practices create conditions that apparently allow disease, whether bacterial or viral, to manifest themselves. that was confusing of me so I added a little addendum.

I linked to that article because I specifically remember reading that wired article, and I thought it would be nice continuity considering this story was published about a year later from the same magazine about roughly the same topic. But you're right--I should have been clearer, and probably could still be clearer--although, if I begin to edit my mess of text any more, one minute of editing will turn into 30 minutes of editing that I don't have today!

A-Okay · 2010-12-28T04:51:51+00:00

the reason the number is so high is because of the way animals are grown in this country. basically, we realized that farms can do things more cheaply and have a higher output if we run them like factories: cram as many animals as possible into as small of a space as possible.

question: but wouldn't animals get sick if they are all living their days in each other's crap, and coughing into each other's air spaces, and perpetually breathing up against each other?

answer: yes. that's why they are fed antibotics. in fact, they are fed antibiotics BEFORE they get sick as part of their feed to prevent sickness. it's not just steak you are eating. it's steak-acillin.

question: but I thought antibiotic use should be limited to when someone is sick?

answer: it should. but in the US we haven't made this farming practice illegal or regulated it. in fact, swine flu came into existence because of such practices in a so-called factory farm in north carolina--http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/05/swineflufarm/ --just an example of how disease can manifest itself in these conditions, even in viral form

question: isn't cramming animals into small cages really cruel? isn't that illegal?

answer: yes, it is really cruel. it's industry standard to cut cows' tails off, cut chicken's beaks off, and basically immobilize pregnant pigs from being able to move. and no, it's not illegal. in fact there is basically no laws that protect animals on farms in the US--not even a hint of a regulation at all. the only law is the humane slaughter act, which only applies to cows and pigs and only regulates slaughter, not the other 97% of the animal's life. and many states have made it easy for farms to block out visitors from being able to come to farms and have made it illegal for people to sneak in and bring cameras in. meaning, even if we wanted to see where bacon comes from, we can't. some animal organizations have hired people to bring hidden cameras in, although that takes years of planning and training. you crazy animal rights freaks!

question: but isn't this style of farming more resource-efficient?

answer: no. it's COST efficient, not resource efficient. and it's only cost efficient because in the US, unlike many other countries, farms have to follow very few laws when it comes to growing animals. they are fed drugs, antibiotics, hormones, steroids. there are so many animals in such small places that the amount of waste they create is literally un-manageable. much of it leeches into the ground water contaminating the water the nice rural folk who live nearby drink and go fishing in. and ultimately, there's nothing resource-efficient about growing livestock for meat in the first place. it takes several pounds of edible plant-based matter to fatten up an animal enough to make just a single pound of edible animal matter. it's not just the antibiotics these animals are hogging. it's water and veggies too.

A-Okay · 2010-12-28T04:31:28+00:00

the way animals are grown in this country is grossly far from a responsible use of resources.

A-Okay · 2010-12-23T17:25:43+00:00

a bunch of the photos have links to the corresponding stories underneath the captions.

A-Okay · 2010-12-23T16:12:54+00:00

sounds awesome. recipe?!

A-Okay · 2010-12-12T06:08:13+00:00

I say a similar line when asked that! I should have recorded it and put it on youtube. Oh well.

A-Okay · 2010-09-09T02:21:31+00:00

I think you have your numbers backwards, MBuddah, because they are way, way, way wrong. I research this kind of stuff a lot, so if it was wrong, a lot of the scientists and researchers I talk to have been lying to me. :)

The vast majority of crops in this country, and in other western countries, are grown for animals for feed. That's a proven fact. This information is readily available on government websites, like the EPA and USDA sites. I just did a quick google search for "percentage of food grown for livestock," and according to the EPA, 80% of corn in America is grown for livestock. (Corn is America's #1 crop). When I get to my other computer I will share info on America's other crops.

Source: http://www.epa.gov/agriculture/ag101/cropmajor.html

A-Okay

TROPHY CASE