Vegan morality

I just listened to some Propagandhi for old times sake last night. For those who don't know them they're veganarchists (vegan anarchists). I have no problem with anarchism. It usually has quite a bit of truth to it but I just can't understand how people can be moral about being vegetarian or vegan.

I have no problem with vegetarianism or veganism as a health or personal taste choice but Propagandhi frames veganism as an animal rights issue. If someone is going to take that stance then they better start arresting all members of the animal kingdom who kill and eat other animals because it happens all the time. It's usually for food but...that makes sense. If you're a meat eating animal, killing another animal makes sense if you want to eat.

And before anyone says "Yeah, well humans don't have all sharp fangs so we can't be carnivores." That's right, we have a lot of flat, grindy teeth and a few pointed ones on the top and the bottom. Do you know what that means? OMNIVORE.

This, to me, is the problem with being too self righteous about your causes (and I am very guilty of this too) is that you often look just as crazy as the extremist on the other side.

Blast you fast food chains!

I crab about these all the time but it's about time I just rant it out.

I used to be a huge fast food consumer and I still grab it every now and again when I'm traveling. When I first saw the display screens in drive-thrus years ago (you know the ones that let you confirm they are entering what you are ordering) I was ecstatic. This improves my life because it improves the quality of my orders and gets the employees less grief. I would assume it gets them less grief because people can politely correct them at order time as opposed to being pissed when they return. I would at least assume they wouldn't be getting more grief and they'd be getting happier customers.

But here comes the anger part: NO ONE USES THEM ANYMORE! Why do they bother spending the money to basically buy tvs they are going to put outside to improve their service if they're not going to use them?! This, to me, doesn't even seem like a case by case lack of use. It just seems like everyone stopped using them at once and it irritates the living crap out of me. I'm back to getting the same crappy service with no ability to check if they're actually hearing me or not and now I also have a wonderful piece of unused technology in front of me just mocking me.

On a related note I also feel like fast food employees are getting less good at their jobs. This could also just me getting older and crankier or spending time in areas with crappy service. Here's what I mean by worse service though: when I used to place an order I would get this pleasant "that will be $X at your first drive thru window" or something like that. It lets me know how much money it's costing me so I don't have to look at the useless receipt (and if it's way off that's also another check on poor order taking) and it lets me know that we're good to go and telling me which window to stop at. These may seem like minor things but it just seems like common sense. Most places have at least two windows and I want the person at the other end to know we're all set. GRRRRR! Damn you fast food chain!