How to make a case against vegetarianism... (no offence to vegetarians: this is just in the spirit of debate) :P

This was just a kind of an intellectual response to all those people who kept bugging me with all sorts of reasons of why non-veg is bad, evil, heartless, and impure; nothing personal here,just light hearted jousting but my take on this is this: each to his/her tastes; one man's meat is another man's posion. (pun intended). Most of the arguments I get against non-veg is pretty ridiculous, not very well thought-out, and can be defeated in debate. This is how to defend yourself when confronted by guilt-inducing activist-vegans/PETA-ans:

Warning: Do respect other people's beliefs and restrictions: Just as you have a right to eat meat, so do they have not to. My take on this is this: Moderation at all levels in the right way. A vegetarian diet can be just as healthy or unhealthy as a non-veg diet. There are many non-vegans who are just as healthy as vegans, and just as happy. It all boils down to having a healthy balanced diet which provides all the necessary nutrition for you to stay healthy, with plenty of exercise as well. 

Please do feel free to engage in creative and friendly debate in this: I love a passionate debate, well-fought and argued, with the opponents parting as friends, not enemies.

How to defend yourself against activist-vegans' seemingly iron-clad arguments:

1. Question its effectiveness: One popular Utilitarian argument is that even if I, a single individual, were to stop eating meat, this would not reduce the number of animals killed at all. The meat market is far too large for the meat producers to register a single person's consumption or lack thereof.
2. Don't let emotional appeals sidetrack you. A vegetarian might ask 'Well, how would you feel if you were slaughtered and eaten?' How you would feel may not be comparable to how a lower life form feels. Similarly, using excessively graphic descriptions ('misleading vividness') to evoke a negative reaction is a fallacy.
3. Don't let overly-broad generalisations stand. You may be forced to admit that some farms or slaughterhouses treat the animals with unnecessary cruelty. But not all do. There are plenty of ways to make sure you eat well treated animals. What if you just ate free-range chickens? Why isn't that okay?
4. Consider less extreme measures. This is related to previous step. Consider: It's widely accepted that most Americans eat more meat than is healthful, but this does not mean the best option is to eat no meat at all. What if we just ate half as much? Or a third? Having too much of something doesn't mean you should have none; just that you should have less.
5. Attack tenuous hypotheticals. Consider the point that the grain it takes to feed one cow can feed a hundred people. With all the starving people on the planet, it would make sense to have them eat grain and not meat. The problem with this statement is that those people aren't starving because there isn't enough food--they're starving because they don't have access to the food. When the vegetarian says 'We could feed all the starving people with the ', respond with 'but would we?' One recent study found that half of all food in America goes to waste. If we had twice as much, wouldn't we simply waste the increase too?
6. Use the 'circle of life" argument. When you get down to it, most animals, including humans, are naturally suited for eating other animals. It is clearly possible to have a healthy diet without any meat, but it's often a lot harder.
7. Blow apart the animal rights argument. When a vegetarian claims that you're violating animal rights, remember them that many researches can prove us that plants have some level of awareness of their environments. How can one argue about animal rights without knowing how much does a single plant can feel(or how much is a plant aware of what it feels) at all?
8. Point out their use of other animal products. Most vegetarians still use animal products in things like leather, glue, gelatin, and some pharmaceutic capsules. Question their hypocrisy in using some animal products despite claims to the contrary
9. Describe the biological case for eating meat. If we were made to eat only plants, wouldn't we have multiple stomachs, like cows? Our stomach's production of hydrochloric acid, something not found in herbivores. HCL activates protein-splitting enzymes. Further, the human pancreas manufactures a full range of digestive enzymes to handle a wide variety of foods, both animal and vegetable.

• One argument is that being a vegetarian is healthier than eating meat (all things being considered). This requires proof; beef is packed with B12 and tons of healthy stuff. The key is not to eat it all the time and preferably not in cheeseburger and fries form. Further, chicken is not all that fattening. Now if you deep fry it in trans fat and smother it with sweet and sour sauce (essentially a tablespoon of sugar mixed with a tablespoon of salt with BHT to preserve freshness) then you might not be reaping any benefits.
• Anyone who has studied anthropology would know that early hominids that had meat in their diet had larger brains than the early hominids that had an exclusively vegetarian diet. There are a lot of theories about this finding, one of which is that meat provides more calories than vegetarian fare which allowed our ancestors to spend more time thinking and less time foraging. The ones that had the larger brains and could fuel those brains with meat survived better and passed those brains on to the next generation. On a side note, it's been hypothesized that early humans weren't necessary hunters, they were scavengers, so saying it is natural for us to eat meat might not be accurate but it may have helped make us smarter.

'Tis the Season To Be Incredulous: The moral and aesthetic nightmare of Christmas. By Christopher Hitchens

I had never before been a special fan of that great comedian Phyllis Diller, but she utterly won my heart this week by sending me an envelope that, when opened, contained a torn-off square of brown-bag paper of the kind suitable for latrine duty in an ill-run correctional facility. Duly unfurled, it carried a handwritten salutation reading as follows:

Money's scarce
Times are hard
Here's your fucking
Xmas card
I could not possibly improve on the sentiment, but I don't think it ought to depend on the current austerities. Isn't Christmas a moral and aesthetic nightmare whether or not the days are prosperous?

The late Art Buchwald made himself additionally famous by reprinting a spoof Thanksgiving column that ran unchanged for many decades after its first appearance in the Herald Tribune, setting a high threshold of reader tolerance. My own wish is more ambitious: to write an anti-Christmas column that becomes fiercer every year while remaining, in essence, the same. The core objection, which I restate every December at about this time, is that for almost a whole month, the United States—a country constitutionally based on a separation between church and state—turns itself into the cultural and commercial equivalent of a one-party state.
As in such dismal banana republics, the dreary, sinister thing is that the official propaganda is inescapable. You go to a train station or an airport, and the image and the music of the Dear Leader are everywhere. You go to a more private place, such as a doctor's office or a store or a restaurant, and the identical tinny, maddening, repetitive ululations are to be heard. So, unless you are fortunate, are the same cheap and mass-produced images and pictures, from snowmen to cribs to reindeer. It becomes more than usually odious to switch on the radio and the television, because certain officially determined "themes" have been programmed into the system. Most objectionable of all, the fanatics force your children to observe the Dear Leader's birthday, and so (this being the especial hallmark of the totalitarian state) you cannot bar your own private door to the hectoring, incessant noise, but must have it literally brought home to you by your offspring. Time that is supposed to be devoted to education is devoted instead to the celebration of mythical events. Originally Christian, this devotional set-aside can now be joined by any other sectarian group with a plausible claim—Hanukkah or Kwanzaa—to a holy day that occurs near enough to the pagan winter solstice.

I have just flung aside my copy of the Weekly Standard, a magazine with a generally hardheaded and humorous approach to matters. It contains two seasonal articles that would probably not have made print were it not for the proximity to the said solstice. (To be fair, the same can be said of the article that you are reading, but I claim exemption under the terms of the "to hell with all that" amendment.) In the first example, the gifted Joseph Bottum complains that it's hard to write a new Christmas carol lyric because—well, because the existing model is composed of songs of such illiterate banality! But he presses on heroically with an attempt to compose a fresh carol, while fully admitting that the recently invented tradition of such songs creates an almost oppressive weight of kitsch. (He also complains of the doggerel-like mystifications of carols like "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" while not daring to state the case at its most damning—as in ridiculous and nasty lines such as "This holy tide of Christmas all others doth deface." Believe me when I say that I know my stuff here and have paid my dues.)
The second essay is a review by Mark Tooley of a terrible-sounding book called Jesus for President by a terrible-sounding person named Shane Claiborne. You know the sort of thing very well: Jesus would have been a "human shield" in Baghdad in 2003; the United States is the modern equivalent of the Roman Empire. It's the usual "liberation theology" drivel, whereby everybody except the inhabitants of the democratic West is supposed to abjure violence. (To the question of whether the plan to kill Hitler was moral or not, Claiborne cites no less an authority than the Führer's own secretary to claim that "all hopes for peace were lost" after the 1944 attempt. That, as should be obvious even to the most flickering intelligence, was chiefly because the attempt was a failure. What an idiot!)
But why is a magazine of the intelligentsia doing this to us, and to itself, this month? Tooley wants to prove that the legendary Jesus would have been more judicious and perhaps more neoconservative on these points. How can he hope to know that, or even to guess at it? Suppose we put the question like this: Imagine that conclusive archaeological and textual evidence emerged to prove that the whole story of the birth, life, and death of Jesus of Nazareth was either a delusion or a fabrication? Suppose the mother had admitted shyly that, in fact, she had fallen pregnant for predictable reasons? Suppose we found the post-Calvary body?
Serious Christians, of the sort I have been debating lately, would have no choice but to consider such news as absolutely calamitous. The light of the world would have gone out; the hope of humanity would have been extinguished. (The same obviously would apply to Muslims who couldn't bear the shock of finding that their prophet was fictional or fraudulent.) But I invite you to consider things more lucidly. If all the official stories of monotheism, from Moses to Mormonism, were to be utterly and finally discredited, we would be exactly where we are now. All the agonizing questions that we face, from the idea of the good life and our duties to each other to the concept of justice and the enigma of existence itself, would be just as difficult and also just as fascinating. It takes a totalitarian mind-set to claim that only one Bronze Age Palestinian revelation or prophecy or text can be our guide through this labyrinth. If the totalitarians cannot bear to abandon their adoration of their various Dear Leaders, can they not at least arrange to hold their ceremonies in private? Either that or give up the tax-exempt status that must remind them so painfully of the things of this material world.

Growing rift threatens to tear India apart

Hindu-Muslim tensions will rise further

Aatish Taseer

Barely a couple of weeks ago my stepsister, Shalaka, got married at the Taj hotel in Mumbai. Last Wednesday night my stepfather, Ajit, called to pay the bill. When he arrived home 10 minutes later he realised he had left his mobile phone charger behind, so he called Mandira, the Taj banquet manager.

“I can’t speak now, sir,” she said. “We’re under attack.”

Ajit lives in a building next door to Mumbai’s other big hotel, the Oberoi. Within a few moments, he heard gunshots from there too.

In the 48 hours that followed, his neighbourhood was sealed off and his building came under attack. In the windows of the Oberoi he saw deserted rooms, half-drawn curtains, fires, brown smoke and gunmen moving from floor to floor.

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By Friday, he knew that three chefs who had worked at his daughter’s wedding and the family of the Taj’s general manager were dead. Friends of his sisters had also been killed. As terrorist attacks went — and Mumbai has known several in the past few years — it didn’t come much closer to home than this.

My stepfather’s reaction came in the form of a text message the next day. It read: “Pardon Afzal [Muhammad Afzal, accused of attacking the Indian parliament in 2001], hang Sadhvi [a woman accused of participating in the only act of Hindu terrorism in a Muslim neighbourhood], Ban the Bajrang Dal [a Hindu extremist organisation], talk to Simi [a Muslim student organisation of which the Indian mujaheddin, responsible for a string of attacks in Indian cities, is said to be a part], restrict the Amarnath pilgrimage [a Hindu pilgrimage that led to upheavals in the Kashmir valley last summer] fund the Haj. Wow! Truly, my India is great! Fwd 2all Hindus.”

This message, steeped in irony, read like a roll call of the issues and violence that have divided Hindu and Muslim India over the past year. Almost a call to arms, it contained the great, twofold rage that has grown in Hindu India: the feeling that Islamic terrorism seeks to destroy the vigorous “new India” and the suspicion that the state is either unable or unwilling to defend itself — for cynical reasons, such as shoring up the Muslim vote for the government.

The attacks on Mumbai — a city that, in its prosperity, its hybridity and openness to the world, stands as a symbol of the new and energised India — confirmed to many what they had long feared.

Within hours of the attacks, groups gathered in the streets of Mumbai, chanting “Bharat Mata ki Jai” (Victory to Mother India) and singing “Vande Mataram” (Bow to you Mother), a patriotic song that Muslims had objected to as the choice for the national anthem because it implied obeisance to gods other than Allah.

Many British commentators have asked in surprise why India is being targeted. There is no confusion among Indians themselves. When the terrorists say on their websites that they seek to break up India and reclaim it for Islam, they speak a language many Hindu Indians understand. And India has proved to be the softest of soft targets.

More than 4,000 Indians have died in terrorist attacks — the country is the second biggest victim of terror after Iraq and virtually every one of its big cities has faced a terrorist attack. Yet the government has no centralised terrorist database, its intelligence is abysmal and there is little evidence that the state knows who it is fighting.

In dragging its feet, the Indian state does nobody a greater disservice than Indian Muslims. When there are no real suspects, arrests or trials, everyone becomes a suspect. Already an underclass, with low literacy rates, low incomes and poor representation in government jobs, Indian Muslims are increasingly alienated. There is also great pressure on them.

Nobody wants to listen to genuine grievances about poverty, illiteracy and unemployment in the face of a real threat to the country. Many Hindus want Muslims to come clean on the issue of the jihad and to make clear whose side they’re on.

Far from responding positively to this pressure, some Indian Muslims are simply beginning to see their grievances as part of a global conflict between Muslim and non-Muslim.

India’s position in this is unique. It has the largest Muslim minority population in the world (13.4% of the population, or about 150m) but unlike Muslims in western Europe, they are not immigrants.

They have been part of India for centuries.

This is why all Indians — Muslims and Hindu alike — know that the deepening divide threatens the country’s existence.

Many years ago, a divide like this re-energised the Hindu nationalist BJP. Today who knows who it might throw up? The hour of men like Narendra Modi, who oversaw a pogrom of Indian Muslims in Gujarat in 2002, might have come at last.

Aatish Taseer is the author of Stranger to History: A Son’s Journey through Islamic Lands, to be published in March by Canongate.

Malaysia Muslim body issues fatwa against tomboys

KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters Life!) - Malaysia's top Islamic council has decreed that tomboyish behavior and lesbian sex are forbidden in Islam, a newspaper said on Friday.

The National Fatwa Council issued the edict following what it said a spate of cases involving young women behaving like men and indulging in lesbian sex, the Malay language Berita Harian daily said.

"There are teenage girls who prefer the male lifestyle including dressing up in men's clothes," it quoted council chairman Abdul Shukor Husin as saying. "More worryingly, they have started to engage in sexual activities."

He gave no other details.

Mainly Muslim Malaysia frowns on oral and gay sex, describing them as against the order of nature. Under the civil law, offenders -- both males or females -- can be jailed for up to 20 years, caned or fined.

Just over half of Malaysia's 27 million people are Malay Muslims, practicing the moderate brand of Islam.




LOL, I really don't know where to start; either on the absolute ignorance of a religious official who obviously has not bothered to learn more about the true nature of yoga before dismissing it; or the obvious insecurity of a person who clings so tightly to his faith but is SO worried that even the slightest deviation from it will cause him to convert!! This is absolutely the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard of-and by the way, who are these people to tell other muslims what to do? Did we elect him? NO! Has he done ANYTHING to benefit his fellow citizens besides extorting them to close their minds to everything else but their religion? NO! Has he contributed to the collective knowledge of mankind? Of course not...he's spent waay too much time looking for imaginary temptations, imaginary nymphs to distract his precious flock from their beliefs, never mind the fact that the "flock" never actually chose him as their shepherd....And this applies to everyone else; who are we to legislate taste? Does it matter to you if someone is a lesbian? Would a lesbian be a threat to you? We have more dangerous threats coming from terrorists who claim their religion as justification for their deeds-however deluded they may be-shouldn't they be issuing fatwas against them? have lesbians threatened your family or general society? I think there is a more serious issue at hand here-that we as a society, whether muslim or not, have let these pompous religious know-it-alls tell us how to think, and what we can or cannot do-if you want to ban something, put it through the democratic process, debate it in Parliament, and enact a Law. Religion is there to guide our actions, and its a personal thing-no one has the right to tell another person what to wear, what to eat, what music to listen to, what exercise regime to follow, what books to read, etc etc etc. Unless we throw off the chains of these fatwa issuing morons and them to the ranks of real life clowns, only then will this country progress.

"One Week" by Barack Obama

Clive Thompson: Why Veteran Visionaries Will Save the World

By Clive Thompson  09.22.08

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Don't trust anyone over 30. That's the prevailing wisdom in Silicon Valley, a land once again bestrode by millionaire CEOs who just learned to shave. Many people believe that the breakthrough ideas come only from the young. And why not? Media stories constantly recite the ages of a few famous founders: Bill Gates of Microsoft, 20; Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, 20; the Google boys, 25; YouTube's Chad Hurley, 28. Tumblr founder David Karp is 21 — and on his second successful company.

Young people rule tech innovation, we tell ourselves, because they have several key advantages. They're fearless and naive, so they'll try anything. They can spy markets that elders, with their locked-in views, cannot. And without dependents or spouses, twentysomethings can work the sort of pyramid-building hours necessary for a startup. It's a kind of Logan's Run world: If you're ending a third decade, you're obsolete.

But hold on. A recent study has finally collected some data on age and high tech innovation and found that older geeks are just as successful as young Turks. What's more, the chronologically advanced are especially successful at solving problems we increasingly — and desperately — need solved.

In other words, the high tech future may belong to the over-30 set. The Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation surveyed 652 US-born CEOs and heads of product development who founded high tech firms in the boom (and bust) years of 1995 to 2005. Both the average and median ages were 39 — far older than the mythic dorm-room visionary. Turns out those youthquake pioneers don't really represent the pack. They're outliers.

So why is our intuition wrong about this? Because young and old founders create different types of startups.

Mature entrepreneurs tend to launch startups that require huge amounts of capital — biotech companies, energy firms, outfits that make expensive hardware. Startup costs in these areas include tens of millions for research resources, large staffs, maybe a laboratory. Then, to take their invention to market, they have to navigate complex, entrenched industries, which requires connections. "You need to know how to run a company right off the bat and inspire confidence in investors," says Vivek Wadhwa, a Harvard Fellow who coauthored the Kauffman Foundation report.

In contrast, those sexy Web-service firms that have dominated headlines on and off for the past decade require almost no capital. The "social software" market also rewards people who intuitively understand new media experiences. "There's been social change, too," says Paul Graham, cofounder of Y Combinator, a seed-funding firm. "Ten years ago, it was bizarrely unusual for someone graduating college to launch a startup. Now almost everyone who gets a computer science degree at least thinks about doing it."

In essence, the high tech world divides itself: Young people create the way-kewl consumer software — the Twitters and the Loopts — and older folks tackle the heavy-industry stuff. Young founders hack information; old founders hack atoms.

But we're moving to a world where we need more and more of the latter. Think of some of the thorniest high tech challenges — solar energy, battery systems, plug-in cars. These all reside in the world of atoms. Whoever cracks the problem of carbon sequestration is going to reap a multibillion-dollar reward. But they'll have to solve some hellishly complex physics puzzles and then introduce the solution to an energy industry riddled with byzantine state-by-state regulations and run by an old-boy network of cigar-chewing gazillionaires. Not something easily accomplished in sweatpants.

When you look at it this way, the constant hype over social applications like Facebook or Tumblr can seem a bit misplaced. I'm not saying that Web 3.0 or 4.0 apps are going away (or that they'll stop being fun). But here's my bet: When we finally start solving our global energy and resource dilemmas, the next generation of media-feted tech CEOs will look more like your parents than your kids. Or, to put it another way: Don't trust anyone who wants to put an age limit on innovation.

Email clive@clivethompson.net.