I'm sorry the fish are in pain. Really, I am! But somehow it's hard to get worked up about this when there are, well, bigger fish to fry.

Yes, one might say that there are more pressing issues -- if your primary concern is the environment. However, PETA's first concern is with animals, though they do address environmental concerns regarding commercial fishing within this campaign and others.

Here's PETA's mission statement:

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), with more than 800,000 members, is the largest animal rights organization in the world. Founded in 1980, PETA is dedicated to establishing and protecting the rights of all animals. PETA operates under the simple principle that animals are not ours to eat, wear, experiment on, or use for entertainment.

PETA focuses its attention on the four areas in which the largest numbers of animals suffer the most intensely for the longest periods of time: on factory farms, in laboratories, in the fur trade, and in the entertainment industry. We also work on a variety of other issues, including the cruel killing of beavers, birds and other "pests," and the abuse of backyard dogs.

PETA works through public education, cruelty investigations, research, animal rescue, legislation, special events, celebrity involvement, and protest campaigns.

The environment is not mentioned at all, so I don't find it surprising that PETA's campaigns don't always resonate strongly with environmentalists. Kind of like how some people feel like that there are more important issues other than the environment. I'm not sure the best approach is to pick on animal rights campaigns while others are doing the same thing to environmental campaigns.

But I do think these tactics -- writing snotty letters to anglers in the name of making fish comfortable -- go a long way toward fostering the reputation environmentalists have for being elitist and out of touch.

Eating meat is one of the most polluting and less efficient thing that we do ("we" exclusing myself and other vegetarians/vegans). It was actually for environmental reasons that I first became vegetarian, before discovering the ethical reasons and health benefits (that's just bonus!).

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SUVs are squared-out minivans.

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SUVs are squared-out minivans.

The best way to get people to support your position is to show them some of the things that convinced you in the first place - show them the path that brought you where you are - not to tell them that they should adopt your conclusions because they are "wrong", "bad people", etc.. That just makes them stop listening, and anyway they don't see why they should believe your conclusions without knowing how you got there.

It is a lot more convincing to ask people: "do you think your dog feels pain when you step on its tail? Is he happy when you play with him? Do you think he has his own personality and is different from other dogs? Do you think he has an interest in continuing living his own life? Do you think there's a fundamental difference between the mammals that we consider pets and those that we consider food?" than to say "MEAT IS MURDER! YOU ARE WRONG! BLAH BLAH USUAL STUFF"

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SUVs are squared-out minivans.

the study showed that these well meaning folks suffered retardation from a lack of minerals and vitamins from eating nothing but seeds and stems.

a secondary finding was that many PETA members were also too stoned to be able to string together a well thought out argument of their own beliefs.

one time I had the misfortune to have relations with a ratty rasta vegan chick that never bathed with any real soap. lets just say that the pudding was not to tasty.