> Norma Bennett Woolf wrote:

> > Germany voted to link animal rights tot he rights of humans. CNN has the > > story and a poll at > > http://www.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/europe/05/17/germany.animals/index.html.

> > Norma
> > Norma Bennett Woolf, editor, NAIA News

Juliet says:

> Yikes! > The vote is really close, with only a slim margin of people voting that > Germany has gone too far. Must be a lot of Petaphiles out there voting > more than once.

wakanska says:

CNN polls have been rigged before, in my opinion. I followed on of them very closely awhile back, and I (being right on the west coast PST zone) waited up till midnight, hitting that button over and over and over. The voting REALLY slowed down at that late hour, so I could actually see the difference in my "voting" (LOL.. anyone can do this and do, I'm sure!). I'd run up the numbers, then back off and do nothing and watch the activity go down to almost zero.. Then I'd start up again, voting like mad, and I'd see a sudden flurry of "votes" coming in. Well, either there was someone on another keyboard waiting and watching for the vote to run up against their side, and matching it stroke for stroke, or the computer program at CNN was set to make two votes against every vote that I made. I was able to see this correlation, two for one. In other words, every time I "voted", I was taking one step forward and two steps back. While the results did not show an overall 1-2 vote, it probably started out with a more realistic number and was reset at some point to ensure that the AR side would certainly win. These "Polls" are bogus. There may be some accurate or unbiased ones, but I tend to believe that some of them are used in the lobbying process, to demonstrate public support that isn't really there to legislators, judges, administrators and the like. Any organization with enough money and influence can hire a lobbying firm out of Sacramento or any other state capitol, or Wash DC for that matter, and they in turn can hire the law firm to write the legislation, and the lobbyists can also hire the "communications" firms (PR companies) to get the right stories into the news to help form public opinion and encourage legislators and representatives to vote for their bill. This is the way it works.

They have a disclaimer somewhere anyway, saying that these "polls" are unscientific. So much stuff that gets into the "news" is just crap. If you pin them down on it they have such disclaimers, or they quote "qualified immunity" (They are immune from prosecution for passing on bad information relayed to them by police and other agencies (who often seek publicity to help them railroad someone or otherwise benefit from media focus.. that's why police departments have "spokesmen" and PR departments, and dump stuff on the newswires every time they get a "hot" case!). Journalists and journalist agencies can also use other defenses when they lie, saying that the person in question is a public or controversial figure who has no expectation of privacy, or that the crap that they put out in the media is meant for "entertainment" only. You really cannot believe everything you see in the media these days. Unfortunately, many people do. "Doh?"

Juliet asks:

> Am I the only person who finds it ironic (and kind of sick) that the > nation that organized the slaughter of 6 million human beings is now > writing animal rights into their constitution?
>
> Juliet

Wakanska says:

Not at all. This has been discussed before.. Not only that, but Hitler and Goering formed what was probably the world's first anti-vivisection society, which had an international membership LONG before Hitler took control of the Reichstag and Germany. BUT it was during his climb to power that he did this. He truly was fond of animals, however, the organization that he formed to protect animals was more of a political move that gave him wide grassroots public support and trust. Chalk it up as so much "baby kissing".. Just more political tricks.