Please End Tasteless Assaults

We love burgers. Cheeseburgers, jalapeno burgers, Bulldog Burgers, Big Macs, Whoppers, mushroom burgers, guacamole burgers, Double Downs, teriyaki burgers, bbq burgers; and Carl's Jr. Six Dollar Western Bacon Cheeseburgers drive us wild. The more meat on our burgers, the better we feel. As a matter of fact, the more animal that appears on our plate during any given meal, the happier we are in life.

Any person, organization, organism or inanimate object that attempts to remove meat from our grills is no friend of ours. This brings us to our point: The organization known as People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) can be a complete waste of time.

As much as we admire some of their advertising campaigns intended to raise awareness, this organization wastes significant amounts of manpower on some of its meaningless special interests. For example, it protested the game World of Warcraft (WoW) because helpless seals were beaten with clubs. In our modest opinion, this is a bit unnecessary. Seeing as the rest of the game revolves around the brutal killing of helpless gnomes, night elves, trolls, orcs and goblins, why was PETA more concerned with a few bruised seals than our good friend's human avatar who was ruthlessly pursued and destroyed by the mighty pandaran on a daily basis. Our poor, selfless friend's human WoW avatar is valued less by PETA than some random seals, whom no one is even controlling via an Internet connection. What is wrong with this picture?

Then there is the Manu Ginobili vs. bat showdown that occurred in 2009. For those of you unfamiliar with this incident, a bat invaded San Antonio's AT&T Center where an NBA game was taking place. No one could seem to stop it from swooping around the court until Ginobili clocked it with a left hook. PETA, in a classic attempt to suck the fun out of an event as awesome as this one, responded directly to Ginobili by releasing a statement that included: "To bludgeon a 4-ounce animal to death, it takes either a small man or a totally unthinking one — with no respect or consideration for lives humbler than his own."

In this situation, why is Ginobili on trial? The bat clearly did not have a ticket to the venue and thus had no right to be there in the first place. Also, isn't Ginobili just as much of an animal as the bat? Last time we checked, humans are simply another species of mammal, just like bats.

In our estimation, Ginobili did nothing more than his civic duty to protect himself, as well as the thousands of people in the arena, from a trespassing criminal. Sure, it may have been more fitting for him to make a citizen's arrest on the bat, but when was the last time anyone ever made a citizen's arrest? PETA needs to think about these factors before releasing erroneous statements that condemn people for doing nothing wrong.

PETA spends a lot of time on less-than-useful protests. The fact is, PETA is an organization that totals over 2 million members and brings in more than $30 million of revenue each year, but rarely gets much done in the realm of importance. Looking through PETA's recent victories on its website reveals a long list of PETA taking the fun, enjoyment and even educational progress out of everyday life.

Most recently, PETA courageously saved live fish from experiments at an Indiana high school. Thank goodness. We're sure the fish and their three-second memory spans are eternally grateful.

An even bigger accomplishment came in 2007 when PETA's work with Whole Foods convinced the store to stop selling live lobster. The only group that didn't support that decision was the lobbying superpower Lobster Owners of America, who no longer knew where to purchase their pet lobsters (man's second-best friend). Solid work, PETA. Because of you, lobsters are now killed before they are sold to families instead of after. Just think about the havoc that the lobsters are no longer able to wreak with their claws rubber-banded shut for those three extra hours of life in a tank they used to have. We're sure relieved.

You may, at this point, be thinking that we have some deep-seated resentment for PETA. You are correct. Beside the fact that PETA's attention-grabbing techniques are a grown-up version of a 3-year-old throwing cans of baked beans down Safeway's aisles to acquire their preferred brand of cereal from their mom, PETA is getting in the way of us eating meat. Can we just eat a burger without a scantily clad PETA protester pretending to barbecue herself?