The Rainbow Vegetarian Café in Cambridge, England, has announced that it will not accept the new £5 polymer notes, introduced by the Bank of England in September. Last week the British vegan community discovered that the notes contain trace amounts of beef tallow, which is animal fat, and are therefore unacceptable by their cruelty-free standards. A heated online controversy has resulted, including a petition asking the Bank to remove tallow from the polymer.
The Rainbow Café's owner, Sharon Meijland, told The Telegraph that her stance was announced last Wednesday, at the end of a BBC radio interview on the unrelated topic of Christmas food.
"We sponsor the Vegan Fair and announced on Wednesday we would not be accepting the £5 notes because they are dubious ethically. We have been providing food for vegans for 30 years and have tried to be as ethical as we possibly can...This is not just a restaurant, it's a restaurant where tiny details like this are really important."
Is any of our money cruelty-free?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by tangomargarine on Tuesday December 06 2016, @03:29PM
"We sponsor the Vegan Fair and announced on Wednesday we would not be accepting the £5 notes because they are dubious ethically. We have been providing food for vegans for 30 years and have tried to be as ethical as we possibly can...This is not just a restaurant, it's a restaurant where tiny details like this are really important."
Sometimes when you want to be ethical, there are sacrifices involved. I'm sure you're not expecting the government to cater to your tiny little niche of morality, right?
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Francis on Tuesday December 06 2016, @03:33PM
Well, if they aren't going to be taking that bill, then they'll just have to deal with the people who can't pay their entire bill without it getting a free ride.
This sort of thing is why nobody takes vegans seriously.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by dyingtolive on Tuesday December 06 2016, @03:50PM
Living with a vegan, I find that the following becomes truer every day:
That moment your emotions caused a decision that inconveniences the people you rely on to survive is when you stopped being an impassioned idealist trying to make the world a better place, and just became an asshole.
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 06 2016, @03:58PM
roomie or SO?
(Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Tuesday December 06 2016, @04:09PM
SO.
I wouldn't care about the vegan shit if it weren't for the fact that she expects me to buy it for her, and it's twice as expensive as real food (and I'm convinced far less healthy--EVERYTHING is unfermented soy, MSG, and vegetable oil). Then I usually wind up cooking it, because she works a night job and so then I can get it ready by the time she gets home. Of course, I don't mind the second half of that usually. I actually like cooking, but if I'm not hungry, it's hard to get motivated to do something food related when I have other stuff to do anyway.
The other advantage to doing the cooking myself is that while I'm already in the kitchen, I can cook up a steak or some chicken or something and a pile of veggies then be able to have something resembling food rather than whatever strange paste or soylent green she's eating that night.
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 4, Insightful) by ikanreed on Tuesday December 06 2016, @04:51PM
Your wife sucks at being vegan if all she wants is meat and dairy substitutes. My friend's vegan wife learned to, you know, cook healthy dishes out of fruits, vegetables, and grains. The vegan lifestyle works a lot better if you actually understand nutrition.
I tried going vegan for a month, found myself consistently going for overpriced, nearly-as-destructive substitutes and realized "Nope, this is not for me".
(Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Tuesday December 06 2016, @05:31PM
Ironically, I think I'm better at getting over meat than she is. Before moving in, I basically lived off of stir fry and curry that was effectively vegan most of the time anyway. Every few days I'd toss chicken in for some protein. It's what I was used to eating growing up, but with more meat back then.
Sure, I ate steaks and hamburgers and stuff, but I could live without them. I don't see a week go by without her rushing from something made by gardein or Boca.
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 06 2016, @06:19PM
Perhaps she has cravings because she has nutritional deficiencies.
(Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Tuesday December 06 2016, @07:31PM
I've thought about that. She takes a pile of vitamins daily. She ran out of B12 and attributed that to the cause of feeling really bad one time, and I enjoyed the hell out of asking her how her "healthy" diet was working out for her.
I'm not sure which deficiencies she would not be counteracting with her medicine cabinet of pills. I guess I'll have to go through it and make a list. Personally, I suspect that most of the things she cooks are what she grew up with, and she just prefers it that way, so she goes for the fake stuff and make a compromise, rather than eating an actually semi-healthy vegan diet.
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Tuesday December 06 2016, @05:37PM
That's close to my situation. My SO is vegetarian. In addition, she's allergic to nuts, sensitive to dairy (straight dairy is out, has to be well cooked and blended), and she does not like eggs, onions (but she likes onion powder), bell peppers, corn, mushrooms, pineapple, apple, iceberg lettuce, among other things. She also doesn't much like anything she didn't do herself, and that bias includes my cooking. Really cuts down the options. Pizza has to be olive or tomato.
She eats a lot of junk food and fast food. Yeah, Cheetos are vegetarian and what dairy they have is highly processed. She insists we buy all organic, but she doesn't know or care whether her favorite restaurants and snacks use organic ingredients.
(Score: 5, Funny) by ikanreed on Tuesday December 06 2016, @05:41PM
With those tastes, your SO is apparently 8 years old. I've alerted the FBI.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 06 2016, @07:49PM
I hope she really enjoys trouser sausage and protein slurpees or I'd kick her to the curb. Too-many-rules is a symptom that never improves over time. Vegetarians (or vegans) and born-agains all eventually like to proselytize.
(Score: 2) by ledow on Tuesday December 06 2016, @04:53PM
Is she noticeably healthier than anyone else you know?
(Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Tuesday December 06 2016, @05:34PM
Not really. A little overweight (so am I), but she doesn't have any muscle mass. She either can't lift 40 lbs, out she's putting me on. I can handedly outrun her, and I smoke.
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 5, Interesting) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Tuesday December 06 2016, @05:07PM
Here's one of my favourite recipes that happens to be vegan (or not, depending...) It's cheap, versatile, tasty, filling, hearty, nutritious, easy. No soy, MSG or vegetable oil anywhere, except a bit of oil to fry in. Surprise your other half with it tomorrow.
Dump a cup of dried lentils in hot water with a stock cube (vegan stock cubes should be available). Red lentils, green, brown... doesn't matter.
Peel a heap some potatoes and chop them into halves / quarters.
Peel & chop some swede and carrots, and any other root veg you have lying around. Turnips are good. Celeriac works well in small doses.
Chop onion and garlic and (optionally) chilli. Fry it slowly in a big wok with curry powder.
When the onion is brown, turn up the heat, chuck the veggies in and throw it all around vigorously, coating the veg with tasty oniony, garlicy, oily stuff.
Now you have two choices: You can either continue in the wok, or you can transfer it to a slow cooker and leave it bubbling all day.[1]
Either way, you now need to throw in the lentils (which should have soaked up the water and turned soft) and add a load more water[2] to cover the veg. Throw in a bit of tomato puree and mix it all up.
Now you just jet it bubble until it's a thick stew, then eat, preferably with crusty bread. This is usually about 25 minutes on the hob, or 6+ hours in the slow cooker.
It's also a great way to use up those bits and pieces sitting in the bottom of the fridge going bad. Got a handful of cherry tomatoes turning a bit wrinkly? Chuck 'em in. Half a green pepper from last week's curry? No problem. Limp celery? Broccolli stalks? The end of a cabbage? Kidney beans? Chop it up and drop it in[3]. Waste not want not.
Enjoy. Once you've mastered that, look up recipes for dahl. Makes me hungry just thinking about it. Dead simple: Onions, garlic, curry powder/ghee, lentils, coconut milk. Serve with rice. Can't go wrong.
[1] Put this in the slow cooker in the morning, wash up the wok and when you get home from work you've got a delicious hot meal waiting for you and almost zero washing up. Fantastic in the winter when you want to get the most out of those cosy evenings in with your SO. You can even peel & chop the veg the night before, if you don't have much time in the mornings.
[2] A nice trick is to use the water from steaming / boiling the vegetables of a previous meal. It retains quite a bit of the flavour and nutrition of whatever was cooked in it, so better to use it than throw it away. I usually have a few tubs of veg water in my freezer for such occasions. You don't even have to defrost it, just dump a block of greenish ice in the wok/slow cooker and let it melt. Dark blue water from red cabbage / purple sprouting always looks good:-)
[3] Also, when the missus isn't about, add some bacon and/or chicken stock. Bacon+lentils is always a great combo. I like to cut a pack of 8 rashers in half, chopping up the fatty end for the stew and saving the leaner end for another meal.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by takyon on Tuesday December 06 2016, @05:19PM
Even easier, cook a pound of red lentils in 4 cups of water in a large saucepan. Cook some onions in spices (garlic powder, cumin, black pepper, paprika, etc.). Add some salt or MSG. Combine all the ingredients into the saucepan and add 14 oz of generic tomato sauce. Instant curry.
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(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday December 06 2016, @05:21PM
Don't bother washing the lentils (pick out weird bits if they float to the top). Serve on rice.
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(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Tuesday December 06 2016, @08:23PM
Don't bother washing the lentils
I don't know about that. I've had bags of lentils that have been really dirty, and since they often have such a high surface area (compared to larger things like dried beans), there can be a lot more of it. Also occasionally small stones or twigs to pick out (though those I tend to find more in bags of beans). And beyond avoiding dirt in your food, rinsing can help avoid most of the pesticides and other such residues that may be in that dirt. (Lentils often don't need as many pesticides as other crops, but all kinds of stuff can accumulate in soil.)
I'm not saying it's a huge deal. But it's an easy and quick step, so I do it.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday December 07 2016, @09:12PM
I didn't notice any issue the last couple of times I made it, so I'm voting for laziness.
The whole concept is easier than any other curry I would make. The lentils get a nice mushy texture in less than 30 minutes. The onions cook in like 10 minutes, concurrently. The rice can be made in a rice cooker. If I wanted to make a "real" curry I would put more effort in.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday December 06 2016, @05:51PM
That's more or less my go-to "lazy girl curry" recipe :) Really helps if you have an Indian or Pakistani grocery nearby!
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 06 2016, @06:15PM
And don't forget to sneak in a bit of salt pork when she's not looking.
(Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Tuesday December 06 2016, @05:38PM
Both that and what takyon posted look fantastic. She's got the day off today, so I think she's making fake neat Shepard's pie, but I'm going to try those later this week.
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 07 2016, @07:23PM
Where, these days, can you find a shepard that is both neat and fake to make a pie out of? Wouldn't it be better just to drop the vegan pretense, and get a real messy shepard?
(Score: 2) by curunir_wolf on Tuesday December 06 2016, @06:01PM
I am a crackpot
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Tuesday December 06 2016, @09:33PM
So use olive oil instead. Or some other oil if you want, but olive oil is good. Not great for frying things, but reasonable even for that. It's just about the only fat I ever use anymore. (Admittely, I usually use it with "italian herbs", but not by any means all the time.)
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Wednesday December 07 2016, @05:52PM
Gluten-free pasta, tomatoes and SPAM.
Cook the pasta, throw in diced tomatoes and diced up SPAM, maybe add a bit of salt and some fresh cracked pepper.
Mmmmmmm..... love SPAM!!@!
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 08 2016, @04:04AM
Try it with chick peas instead of lentils too, works nicely.
(Score: 1) by segwonk on Thursday December 08 2016, @09:48PM
GreatAuntAnesthesia:
"[3] Also, when the missus isn't about..."
That's funny - I kind of assumed you were female.
.......go til ya know.
(Score: 2) by theluggage on Tuesday December 06 2016, @05:51PM
The other advantage to doing the cooking myself is that while I'm already in the kitchen, I can cook up a steak or some chicken or something and a pile of veggies
Unless your kitchen resembles a bioweapons cleanroom, you cook wearing a bunny suit and adhere to hygiene rituals that Leviticus himself would have found "a bit fussy" then some of those vegan dishes you prepare for your SO probably contain more dead animal than the new English £5 notes that caused all this fuss.
Anyway, if you eat meat, then anything you cook is the indirect result of animal suffering.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Tuesday December 06 2016, @08:02PM
Unless your kitchen resembles a bioweapons cleanroom, you cook wearing a bunny suit and adhere to hygiene rituals that Leviticus himself would have found "a bit fussy"
Funny, but there was no guy named Leviticus. For that matter, none of the books in the Torah (also Genesis, Exodus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy) were named after a person...
The English name is from the Latin Leviticus, taken in turn from Greek and a reference to the Levites, the tribe of Aaron
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Tuesday December 06 2016, @08:31PM
True, though Leviticus is the only one of those books named indirectly after a person, since Leviticus is derived from the Levites, who were a tribe descended from Levi, a son of Jacob.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday December 06 2016, @08:53PM
Jacob thought that kid was a dick.
Just sayin'
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday December 06 2016, @09:27PM
I'm a little surprised her vegan diet is costing more, unless she's demanding Boca Burgers or something like that. Tofu, soy milk, pasta, and the kind of stuff a vegan can eat are usually less expensive than meat and dairy. My wife and I spent six months eating vegan once and we saved a lot of money on groceries. Even now I find I can feed our family of four on a block of tofu that costs $2 or less when using chicken would cost me $4-5.
Maybe tell her you'll buy her vegan stuff, but not the packaged food with all the fancy labels on it.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Tuesday December 06 2016, @09:58PM
Yeah, it's stuff like Boca and gardein's fake chicken and beef. Costs about as much for half the volume of food.
10.8 oz of gardein chicken is about $6 and some change. Meanwhile chicken breast fillets are $1.99/lb here ATM.
Yeah, telling her that she's gotta get her own processed crap if she wants it is the next step.
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Tuesday December 06 2016, @10:26PM
Also on the topic, vegan butter is 5.58 / lb*. Real butter is $2.99 / lb.
A gallon of almond milk is about 20 bucks (!). It's about 2.50 for a gallon of milk here.
If you're trying to make the same type of food you did before, you're paying a crazy amount of money to do it.
* I am genuinely not sure how this differs from margarine. She says it tastes like butter. I can tell the difference, but I have never compared it to margarine.
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 1) by Francis on Wednesday December 07 2016, @03:57AM
Around here the almond milk often goes on sale. I wouldn't pay full price for it anyways. I'm not a vegan, I just avoid it because I no longer have the necessary bacteria to digest lactose properly. It's one of the downsides of not consuming dairy for such a long time, now the bacteria that were doing that aren't there any more.
If you're really cheap, you can always grow your own almonds and turn them into almond milk, or just eat them as almonds. One of the nice things about that is that the almond flowers are relatively nice to look at.
(Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Wednesday December 07 2016, @07:47AM
Almond milk doesn't really go on sale, but there's a discount food store (similar to an ALDI) that frequently stocks it at a reasonable price that we usually get some from when it's there.
I'm not sure it would work with our space constraints, but growing almonds is a VERY interesting idea.
I actually like the taste of almond milk, but because it's slightly sweet, you have to do some really strange things to get it to taste like real milk in things. I figured out I could make a white gravy out of it that actually tastes like gravy by adding just enough paprika to kill the sweet flavor without being noticeable on it's own. You can also almost curdle it like real milk to make buttermilk. It doesn't taste the same, but it comes out close enough when you bake it.
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 2) by CoolHand on Wednesday December 07 2016, @12:40PM
Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job-Douglas Adams
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 06 2016, @05:28PM
That moment your emotions caused a decision that inconveniences the people you rely on to survive is when you stopped being an impassioned idealist trying to make the world a better place, and just became an asshole.
That's the false narrative of dispassionate decision making at work.
Nobody makes decisions free of emotion, especially not decisions that are wrapped up in personal identity.
If you believe yourself to be immune to it, that's just self-deception.
In fact, Michael Lewis (of Moneyball, The Big Short, etc fame) is running a PR tour right now for his new book at that examines exactly that phenomenon, its called "the undoing project."
(Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Tuesday December 06 2016, @05:42PM
The key wasn't just the emotions making the decision, but the qualifier about the people you depend on.
That being said, your book sounds intriguing.
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 06 2016, @06:06PM
> but the qualifier about the people you depend on.
And that's just as specious.
No, really.
If they inconvenienced people they didn't depend on, then they would be accused of being bad citizens, uncaring about the public welfare. We see it every time there is a public protest.
Support from the people you depend on is the point of having people you depend on. Its practically the definition of having people you depend on. If that support was zero-cost there would be no dependence. Your thesis comes across as very reductive and transactional - that you don't support the people you love because you love them, only for what they can give you and once their needs from you are greater than your needs from them, they need to cut that shit out and conform to your expectations.
(Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Tuesday December 06 2016, @07:24PM
The alternative would be to NOT inconvenience people, or rather more realistically, minimize the amount of inconvenience you do to those people. If you really loved them, I'd think you'd want to avoid being a burden on them as much as possible.
You're right about the zero-cost thing. I was not considering any sort of initial dependence upon a person an inconvenience. I suppose I should have said "further inconvenience".
The problem is that I have a general sense of one-sidedness about it. Ranty anecdote time: She was a vegetarian, then after she moved in, suddenly went in with the vegan bullshit. Singlehandedly, she caused the monthly food budget to go up 350-400% (200% people, fake vegan food roughly 150%-200% the price of real food). I had to cut back on things I enjoy doing significantly as a result of it, which is fine, but then later, when I told her that, with her other bills on top of that, I was struggling to save anything, and had already cut out about everything I could. I told her that I couldn't afford to sustain her, and she needed to get a job. She said she was going to get one, but never did. That became a fight, and she begrudgingly (after I showed her the numbers and invited her to find something else I could cut out) found a job that barely covers her personal bills, self-righteously citing that she "doesn't need that much money to be happy," nevermind that I'm still paying for everything else. Now she's "too busy working to help with housework" and gets mad at me for not doing more, though I work 20-30 hours more a week than her, and cook almost every night.
I don't like keeping score, but that one event stuck in my mind so vividly, even now. Just the total ungratefulness of everything I'd been trying to do already as well as the total resentment about needing to do something other than sit on her ass all day long. Prior to that, I'd never bothered her about the job. Never demanded it of her. So in the case of my anecdote, I'd say yeah, she needs to cut that shit out and conform to my expectations. I'm struggling under the load. She needs to pull HER fucking weight and help out. Maybe that makes me the bad guy. If it does, I don't really mind.
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 06 2016, @07:56PM
Poor bastard. You forgot the cardinal rule. If it flies, floats, or fucks it's cheaper to rent. You've taken on ownership responsibilities.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 06 2016, @08:04PM
> The alternative would be to NOT inconvenience people, or rather more realistically, minimize the amount of inconvenience you do to those people.
Anything that challenges the status quo will cause inconvenience. If it did not cause inconvenience, then it would be the status quo.
You seem to at least partially recognize that because you are now softening your position to "minimize." But that is a completely undefined definition, your version of minimal isn't necessarily going to be anyone else's definition.
> Ranty anecdote time:
I am not even going to read past that because your personal relationship problems are not a basis for a general principle. You trying to make them into such a principle is a variation on the appeal to authority fallacy because it lets you abdicate responsibility for working things out with this person in favor of unilaterally declaring them wrong and you right.
(Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Tuesday December 06 2016, @08:16PM
Why does anyone's definition of "minimize" need to be consistently defined across any set of people? For any given person, if you have principles, and your principles inconveniences that person sufficiently, that person will not like you and go elsewhere.
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 06 2016, @08:30PM
> Why does anyone's definition of "minimize" need to be consistently defined across any set of people?
Because you've offered it up as a general principle for when to judge if someone is in the wrong.
If it can't be consistently defined, then its not a general principle. Its situational.
(Score: 1) by cmdrklarg on Tuesday December 06 2016, @08:59PM
Answer now is don't give in; aim for a new tomorrow.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday December 06 2016, @09:02PM
You might consider getting a new girlfriend. Money breaks up most marriages, and it sounds like you're not doing well on that front already. If she's behaving this way now, how do you think she'll behave when she thinks she owns you? Cut your losses and move on.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by CoolHand on Wednesday December 07 2016, @12:47PM
Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job-Douglas Adams
(Score: 1) by Francis on Wednesday December 07 2016, @04:00AM
Veganism is 100% about emotions. The difference in health between eating a little bit of meat/animal products and eating none at all is pretty significant.
It doesn't take much meat to make sure that you're diet is nutritionally sound, but trying to construct a diet that's vegan and nutritionally sound is incredibly difficult. I used to go to a college where there were a ton of vegans and they always looked malnourished and usually were. I have known a vegan powerlifter who appeared to be in great health, so it would appear to be possible to get the necessary nutrients without the animal products, but I have to wonder if it would be affordable for people who aren't independently wealthy and don't have advanced degrees in nutrition to accomplish.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 07 2016, @01:41PM
Or as seen from the other side:
Veganism is 100% about morality. The difference in morality between committing even one murder and not murdering at all is pretty significant.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 06 2016, @05:45PM
Living with a vegan, I find that the following becomes truer every day:
That moment your emotions caused a decision that inconveniences the people you rely on to survive is when you stopped being an impassioned idealist trying to make the world a better place, and just became an asshole.
A friend of mine's band used to have this great bassist who suddenly quit and we hardly ever see the guy at other common friends parties anymore either. When asked about it he gave a few reasons and capped it off with "I guess we should have seen this coming when he suddenly went vegan."
I decided long ago that vegetarians weren't worth dating, at the very least I wasn't going to deal with the hassle of separate meals and knowing that the relationship will eventually just grow toxic and they try to "convert" you.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 07 2016, @05:19AM
I can see you possess some strong principles, being that you are apparently unwilling to inconvenience others in order to follow them.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by dr_barnowl on Wednesday December 07 2016, @09:27AM
Honestly.... I'd get out of that relationship.
I married someone who was not a vegan, but an incredibly finicky eater. Wouldn't try new things, would refuse to eat a plateful of food if you so much as touched the plate with something she imagined had a trace of some contamination on it. Wouldn't let me do the food shopping, complained about having to do it and pay for it herself. Hated me cooking, for various control-freak reasons.
After our marriage fell apart, I'm with someone who is an ex-vegetarian. A little less widely-eaten than me, some vestigial traces of finicky eating left, but she's a born-again lover of food, and actually seeks to broaden her horizons. She's recently overcome her prejudice against prawns and actually started enjoying them. Cooking is no longer something I'm not allowed to do, it's something we share, and we can share the product of that mutual activity and really enjoy it. We discover new foods we love together. The hard part of picking a restaurant isn't finding somewhere she's prepared to eat, but picking from the enormous choice we have available.
Food is a substantial fraction of the human experience. I firmly believe that we need to be with someone gastro-compatible with ourselves as much as we need to be with someone sexually compatible.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 07 2016, @01:44PM
Is that a fancy way of saying "slimmer"?
(Score: 2) by CoolHand on Wednesday December 07 2016, @12:26PM
Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job-Douglas Adams
(Score: 2) by CoolHand on Wednesday December 07 2016, @01:43PM
Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job-Douglas Adams
(Score: 5, Insightful) by mendax on Tuesday December 06 2016, @03:53PM
The whole concept of money is of dubious ethicality. You never know what was done to earn that money and you don't know what it is going to be used for once you pass it on to someone else. Money is essentially a fiat for generic goods and services, and they can run the gamut from buying a pack of gum to arranging for the murder of your wife. And because money is issued by governments, ethics fly right out of the window there.
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
(Score: 2) by cubancigar11 on Tuesday December 06 2016, @07:18PM
Money is power in the form of currency. Money was invented by men because men realized easy transition of power creates stable system.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Tuesday December 06 2016, @09:43PM
Nonsense. Money was invented because people couldn't trust the purity of the gold they were being asked to accept, so this family associated with government (I'm not sure if it was originally government, and it could well have been the king) started issuing small bars of gold embossed with their seal as a guarantee of its purity. This was the foundation of the wealth of Croesus.
Of course, contracts of various forms predate that by a long time, so if you want to consider a hunk of mud with a picture of a donkey on it, and somebody's seal, to be money, then it goes so far back that we can't trace it. But it pre-dates writing, and was one of the foundations on which writing was built.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by pnkwarhall on Wednesday December 07 2016, @12:17AM
David Graeber hypothesizes money was popularized by the advent of nation-states needing to fund standing armies. The armies were necessarily non-local, being coaxed or forced away from their original standing as productive members of a local community's economy. This dislocation forced a transition, from long-term, relationship-based bartering-type transactions, towards the use of fiat currency that was useful for the short-term and semi-anonymous transactions characterized by an army member's "stranger in the city" situation.
Your assertion that the transition to fiat currency was based on trust fits this theory. But Graeber's POV is that governments created the need in the first place for fiat currency, as a replacement for the long-term trusting/interdependent relationships that characterized a hyper-local, bartering-based economy.
Lift Yr Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Wednesday December 07 2016, @01:46AM
I think that armies were a secondary growth, and the original consumers of money were merchants.
OTOH, you can point to small "armies" that predate the existence of money, and it is true that agricultural populations couldn't, in many social structures, support a standing army without money. One could point to Sparta as a potential exception. They had money, but it was, by law, based on iron, and thus not readily portable, so effectively they were without money.
OTOH, it partly depends on how you define army. The Aryan invasion of India required a large "army", and was before the existence of money. But the "army" was an entire tribe. I'm not sure about the timing of the Hittites conquering Egypt, but that may also have been prior to the existence of money. And certainly in the middle east large armies started being common after money was invented. But this also corresponded with the time of the centralization of power and control being rapidly increased. And tax records go back far prior to money as normally understood.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by cubancigar11 on Wednesday December 07 2016, @03:32AM
I have heard that theory but in all of its forms that theory fails to explain why people love gold so much (diamond-water paradox). Anything that is commonly used for barter and doesn't hold any intrinsic value by itself is money. If you look at little kids in poor villages you will inadvertently find them bartering with random stuff used as money such leaf, some particular rock, or marbles. I think we suffer from associating invention of money with finding historical money in non-perishable format i.e. gold. There is no reason to believe money wasn't used before gold was discovered and in fact there is no reason to believe money wasn't used among small tribes that could manage it personally. I propose the very invention of civilization (as in classical civilizations) is due to invention of money that makes it worthwhile be part of the system by making transactions easier.
Leaving all that and just focusing on kids who play with marbles - they don't care about gold - they care about establishing an order of power (who is better player than whom) and invention of money makes it very easy to always know, assert, and barter that power over time.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Wednesday December 07 2016, @06:53PM
That's plausible, and is why (in one of my comments) I mentioned that it depends on what you are willing to consider money. Certainly the oldest *known* thing that can be called "money" is balls of clay with clay figures hidden inside them. These were "promissory notes", or, if you will, IOUs. Calling them money is a bit uncertain, however, because it depends on what you mean by money. There's no necessary conversion rate between a donkey and a chicken. And certainly trading items predated the promissory notes, but barter isn't using money.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by cubancigar11 on Thursday December 08 2016, @07:01AM
Money, as in currency, is still IOU and nothing else, except that if you don't honor it goons (police) will come and harass you (by putting you in criminal justice system) and society won't interrupt (by voting for a government). The conversion rate is natural outcome when large number of people start participating on same system. To take your example, it is very possible that I can sell a donkey for a chicken via eBay today - I pay the seller of chicken 1$ and he uses that to buy donkey from me in 1$. But if a large number of people start selling donkeys and chickens on eBay the conversion rate will automatically emerge from the averaging. That is what I was saying - the whole invention of money is only to ease the transaction so more people can participate in it. Money, in that way, is literally nothing but power.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Thursday December 08 2016, @07:39PM
You can only do that if there is some way of standardizing the quality of chickens and donkeys. Which is one of the reasons gold was favored, and which is why a trusted certification of purity was important. When you buy something it is presumed that there is some way of assuring the quality of the received merchandise. If there isn't, the system soon breaks down.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 1) by Francis on Wednesday December 07 2016, @04:04AM
Money was invented because society needed a way of storing funds. Prior to the invention of money, you had to barter for the things you needed. If you didn't need something right then or know what you'd need in the future, you had a bit of a problem. Plus, if you got into a bad situation because you forgot or didn't offer anything of value, you couldn't get your way out of it.
With money, we can earn money and then spend it at a time when it's more convenient. Which is rather hard to do with milk, pork bellies or goats. And good luck if you needed to spllit a cow between two people that didn't want their share at the same time. Money fixes all that fairly conveniently.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Wednesday December 07 2016, @07:04PM
That's why money was more generally useful than the prior systems, but IOUs, or contracts for payment, predate money, and were transferable. The thing is, "If some one promises a donkey in exchange for the IOU, do you trust him to trade you a donkey that isn't at death's door?". The guy who makes the original deal may have reason to trust the guy he makes the deal with, but what about a guy who trades with him? So things like lumps of metal that were presumably trustworthy were traded (i.e., actual goods) rather than IOUs when it was feasible. But then impure hunks of metal that were hard to tell from the good stuff started being traded by some who were less than totally honest. So somebody put his name on the line, and started marking hunks of metal with his seal (for a price) as a guarantee of purity. Which is when I decided to call it money. But you could really point at any point of the development and say "That's when I start calling it money.". The exact point of demarcation is nearly arbitrary. Some people are uncomfortable calling it money until it's in the form of coins, and that's OK as long as they make clear what they mean. The classical Greeks, however, decided to say that the division came when this family started putting their seal on bars of gold, and that's as good a marker as any.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 06 2016, @08:45PM
Nonsense. Insightful? Nay. Idiotic.
By the same reasoning, you must admit into your world view the notion that teaching a child how to read and write and speak is of dubious "ethicality", because that child might one day use those skills to transform himself into a tyrannical despot.
It is not the exchange of money for bananas which bears the burden of dubious ethics; the dubiousness only enters when the money is then actually exchanged for arranging a murder.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 06 2016, @09:59PM
Even if those bananas were grown by slash-and-burn agriculture?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by tonyPick on Tuesday December 06 2016, @04:09PM
So presumably they also don't allow Soap, Deliveries via car, people travelling on Bicycles, any music played with an instrument [treehugger.com] and also don't own computers or mobile phones [wikipedia.org]?
(Score: 4, Touché) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday December 06 2016, @04:40PM
So presumably they also don't allow Soap, Deliveries via car, people travelling on Bicycles, any music played with an instrument and also don't own computers or mobile phones?
It's even better than that!
FTA: One puzzling inconsistency is the fact that the Rainbow Café is vegetarian, not strictly vegan (although it does offer vegan menu items). This means that some animal products are still used on the premises, which makes Meijland’s stance a bit surprising.
I'm not necessarily on-board with all the vegan-hate going on in this thread but that's just funny.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 06 2016, @04:57PM
No, that just unmasks the charade for what it is: a shitty publicity stunt meant to get them more business from retards with more money than brains... I mean vegans.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 07 2016, @01:03PM
Personally I'd have used bacon grease vice beef tallow. That would not only drive off the looney vegans but the jews and hajis as well.
(Score: 2) by CoolHand on Wednesday December 07 2016, @01:55PM
I'm sure they don't expect it, but that doesn't mean they can't fight for it. How do we bring about any change if we just accept the status quo? Those in power love little sheeple like you... so many people in the world see a big wrong that needs to be righted, and look at the enormity of the task to address it, and just throw up their hands.... When in actuality, if they fought to change it, they could do a lot of good just working towards changing it. Not everyone in the world needs to go vegan to reduce animal cruelty substantially, and help the environment substantially. If most people just cut back meat consumption to very small portions a couple times a week, that would go a long way towards helping some major problems. So, vegans promote the issues hoping people will at least see the wrongness out there in what is happening, and will at least think about things, and maybe take some small steps (and eventually after enough small steps reach the final destination)..
Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job-Douglas Adams
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Wednesday December 07 2016, @02:49PM
Those in power love little sheeple like you...
Ha. If you had actually read any of my comments here you'd know that isn't me. This whole "issue" is just so silly (as stated elsewhere literally zero cows will be killed to make the money) that it's not worth a fight.
Not everyone in the world needs to go vegan to reduce animal cruelty substantially, and help the environment substantially. If most people just cut back meat consumption to very small portions a couple times a week
Kind of drifting from this thread's topic, but okay whatever.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by CoolHand on Wednesday December 07 2016, @04:36PM
You're probably right... I was too lazy to go to your profile and read every comment you made.. I apologize for the sheeple comment. I just get tired of people looking at an ethical fight and just giving up instead of at least attempting it and making progress... What's that old saying? something like, if you strive for perfection and don't attain it, you'll still end up at pretty good? something along those lines.. I see a lot that type of attitude when it comes to animal cruelty, (and saw it elsewhere in this thread). I probably let that cloud my thinking when reading your comment.
Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job-Douglas Adams
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Wednesday December 07 2016, @05:32PM
"Perfect is the enemy of good" is how I've heard it put, although I think that's meant to be the opposite sentiment -- e.g. in software development, you can work on making it perfect forever, but at a certain point you need to ship something.
I'm hesitant to apply your sentiment to e.g. rewriting the Constitution because of the risk of ending up with something much worse (especially in our current political climate).
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.
- George Bernard Shaw
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 5, Insightful) by janrinok on Tuesday December 06 2016, @03:29PM
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 06 2016, @03:41PM
> I'm quite happy with their decision, they won't accept my money and I will not give them my trade.
Not like you were going to anyway.
How many people here refuse to use credit cards because of the tracking infrastructure behind them?
If they were refusing to take credit cards people here would be lauding them.
This is really no different. The proprietors of this restaurant have one set of principles which they are sticking to. If they took that cash how many would accuse them of being hypocrites? Damned if you do, damned if you don't. You may disagree with their principles, but they are being ideologically consistent. Its not like they are refusing service based on some principle that is unrelated to their actual business, like refusing service to blacks or gays.
(Score: 1) by Francis on Tuesday December 06 2016, @03:45PM
That's not even remotely the same thing. There are all sorts of reasons why people don't use credit cards ranging from not being able to get one to overspending when using them. But, it's a personal decision not to use them, if somebody fails to offer credit as a form of payment, then some people won't buy from them.
Cash though, is a more universal form of payment and in the US it's legal tender for settling debt, apart from Apple, nobody refuses to take cash. This is the UK, and so our rules don't apply, but I can't imagine a functioning economy where some businesses are allowed to arbitrarily take some cash and not others other than if they suspect the cash is counterfeit. The closest thing I've ever seen is places where they refuse to take large bills.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday December 06 2016, @04:47PM
(Score: 2) by t-3 on Tuesday December 06 2016, @05:21PM
Only people with bank accounts & credit can get credit cards. People that can't get or don't have bank accounts or have bad credit can't use credit cards, but everyone can use cash. You can buy Amazon gift cards with cash and buy from Amazon with those too.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday December 06 2016, @05:30PM
(Score: 2) by t-3 on Tuesday December 06 2016, @05:36PM
You also can't walk into an Amazon and buy something, you have to order off a website. Physical stores take physical money, electronic money, IOUs both physical and electronic (although the physical are less and less common), electronic stores take electronic money because they don't have the capability for anything else.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday December 06 2016, @05:49PM
You also can't walk into an Amazon and buy something
Exactly. And not every mail-order company sells gift cards in the local store.
(Score: 2) by t-3 on Tuesday December 06 2016, @06:04PM
Many do accept Western Union though.
(Score: 1) by Francis on Tuesday December 06 2016, @09:50PM
You can buy anything from a store for cash and if you really need something online and don't have a credit card, you can buy a gift card or prepay a credit card. Not good options, but they are possible.
Credit cards require credit checks as well as having a bank and these are also decisions being made by the customer rather than the business. Businesses taking cards, but not cash are pretty much restricted to companies that are either online or dealing with such large amounts of money that it would be unwieldy to accept cash. For example, people buying and selling houses generally won't take cash.
It's also notable in that I've never heard of a business refusing small bills. Refusing 50s and 100s is fairly common as those are bills that are potentially large enough to counterfeit, but refusing a smaller bill is just weird. If they're going to be doing business with the public, then they need to provide a sane method of payment.
(Score: 2) by archfeld on Tuesday December 06 2016, @06:46PM
A debt, and a bill are very different. A debt is incurred with out service having to be rendered, e.g. taxes both income and property, which is what the statement legal tender for debts public an private was intended for. It was designed to keep the government from taking land/property to pay taxes. A bill is for services rendered and the server can insist on not accepting a particular denomination, as illustrated by many businesses refusing high denomination bills in the late hours.
For the NSA : Explosives, guns, assassination, conspiracy, primers, detonators, initiators, main charge, nuclear charge
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 07 2016, @05:27AM
Then don't put animal ingredients in the fucking money. How hard is that?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by tangomargarine on Tuesday December 06 2016, @04:28PM
How many people here refuse to use credit cards because of the tracking infrastructure behind them?
If they were refusing to take credit cards people here would be lauding them.
This is really no different.
No, it's completely different. Accepting credit cards requires you to be set up to do so, which necessitates paying a credit processing fee. Accepting money is virtually zero effort.
The proprietors of this restaurant have one set of principles which they are sticking to. If they took that cash how many would accuse them of being hypocrites?
Probably nobody except some percentage of their customers, which we've generally established are already unreasonable :P
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 06 2016, @04:32PM
No, it's completely different. Accepting credit cards requires you to be set up to do so, which necessitates paying a credit processing fee. Accepting money is virtually zero effort.
The mechanics have nothing to do with it.
If they rejected credit cards out of principle it would be exactly the same thing.
The only difference is that it would be a principle you are more open to.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Tuesday December 06 2016, @04:35PM
If they rejected credit cards out of principle
Well, this is a clause I never agreed was part of the argument. I don't care whether they refuse to take CC for practical or idealistic reasons, or indeed at all.
Just recently Aldi started accepting credit cards. I would assume their reasoning for not doing so before was a cost-saving measure, since it seems they only have like 2-4 people working there at any given time.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 06 2016, @04:43PM
> Well, this is a clause I never agreed was part of the argument.
Well, if you ignore the entire point of my post, you can dispute anything!
See the subject line "ideologically consistent" - you shouldn't have continued to use the same subject line if you were talking about some wholly unrelated concept.
Next time argue in good faith or don't argue at all.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Tuesday December 06 2016, @04:47PM
Because changing the subject line in a reply definitely isn't ambushing us :P
Next time argue in good faith or don't argue at all.
I could say the same thing about you getting an actual damn username.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 0, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 06 2016, @04:53PM
> Because changing the subject line in a reply definitely isn't ambushing us
I changed it because the new subject line was descriptive of the point being made.
In fact, its a direct-cut-and-paste from the text that I wrote in the post too.
There was no ambush. Unless you are admitting to being a puppet account of janrinok.
Stop trying to save face, you went all red herring and have been called on your bullshit.
Admit your error and move on. Or just stop replying, either is identical.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 06 2016, @06:22PM
Straight to ad hominems, eh? Talk about arguing in bad faith.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Tuesday December 06 2016, @07:56PM
You can't ad hominem someone who refuses to name themself. The entire meaning of ad hominem relies on you already knowing who they are.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 06 2016, @08:10PM
> You can't ad hominem someone who refuses to name themself.
Apparently you don't know what word means.
"You are wrong because you suck" is an ad hominem.
It doesn't matter who you are, just as long the unrelated "you suck" is the basis for judging the validity of the argument.
You said he's not arguing in good faith because he doesn't have a username, the two are completely unrelated. The argument stands on its own regardless of who makes it.
And you might as well face it, nobody know who the fuck tangomargarine is either.
(Score: 3, Informative) by AthanasiusKircher on Tuesday December 06 2016, @09:32PM
Accepting credit cards requires you to be set up to do so, which necessitates paying a credit processing fee. Accepting money is virtually zero effort.
While I'm not going to dispute other things you say, that latter statement is problematic. Accepting cash most certainly requires significant effort and resources, which most studies (and businesses) generally estimate to be roughly 1-2% of the transaction costs. Cash creates overhead because small businesses have to stock enough cash for change, which will require you to often get such cash from the bank and transport it (safely). There's the safety issues involved in storing cash and then transporting it TO the bank for deposit, which may incur costs for safes and other security (perhaps even armored car transport, if your business is large enough). Of course this is all because of the risk of robbery. And there is the additional labor involved in "balancing the register" each day and concern about theft from employees as well. Etc.
It's generally NOT as expensive as credit card fees for merchants, but accepting and processing cash transactions most certainly is more than "zero effort."
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 07 2016, @05:30AM
Probably nobody except some percentage of their customers,
What have you been smoking? There are countless incredibly petty people who would waste no time mocking them for apparent hypocrisy. It's quite popular to accuse others of being hypocrites, even if it isn't necessarily true; it's a lazy way to dismiss someone's arguments without doing the hard work of actually debunking them.
which we've generally established are already unreasonable :P
No such thing has been established.
(Score: 3, Informative) by FatPhil on Tuesday December 06 2016, @09:57PM
I'll have a little picnic outside their cafe, where I'll tuck into yummy yummy german speck and italian lardo.
The total of tallow used in all the 5 quid notes is *one freaking cow*. Get over it.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 07 2016, @05:11AM
Your response seems to be a common one in response to vegans doing their own thing.
I think it falls squarely within the group of behaviors commonly described as virtue signaling.
Basically you've let the world know your distaste for vegan beliefs or at least what you imagine them to be.
Would you do the same to hindus?
Would you go out of your way to eat pork or shellfish in front of a jewish deli?
What makes their beliefs regarding animal products unworthy of your public condemnation?
(Score: 5, Informative) by TheRaven on Tuesday December 06 2016, @03:41PM
I have a problem with it. First, it's insane. Someone calculated that the total amount of tallow used in all of the £5 notes in circulation is about half of the amount that you get from one cow. No cows are being killed to make the notes, they're simply using an animal byproduct because it's cheap. The Rainbow Cafe contains quite a few things that contain a lot more tallow than the fivers - they even sell some things that contain tallow. They're just cashing in on the press attention.
Second, the £5 is legal tender. If I buy something from them and they refuse to accept legal tender in return, then what happens? It's a bit murky (lots of common law rulings), but there's quite a bit of precedent to say that the goods are free. If they're happy with that, then fine, but I doubt that they are.
sudo mod me up
(Score: 1) by ShadowSystems on Tuesday December 06 2016, @05:08PM
*Standing ovation*
THANK YOU!
I was waiting for someone to point out that tiny little fact. Thank you for doing so.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 06 2016, @06:14PM
Legal tender only applies to the discharge of a debt, so if they require payment up front it is irrelevant.
Even then (paying after consuming food, such that there is a debt), legal tender is actually only a legal defense during a court case, and to exercise it one has to pay the sum in to the court - as legal tender.
So I leave others to work out the practical implications, which I'd suggest are quite obvious.
diasan
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 06 2016, @06:28PM
BTW - This came up on the ukcrypto mailing list a few years ago, have a look at these two messages, and follow the link to the CPR:
http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/pipermail/ukcrypto/2014-December/002447.html [greenend.org.uk]
http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/pipermail/ukcrypto/2014-December/002450.html [greenend.org.uk]
CPR 37.2: http://www.justice.gov.uk/courts/procedure-rules/civil/rules/part37 [justice.gov.uk]
diasan
(Score: 2) by Osamabobama on Tuesday December 06 2016, @06:34PM
Does 'animal cruelty' have a half-life? I imagine that, over time, all the cruelty that went into a five pound note will be amortized over thousands of transactions, leaving behind a well-worn, but guilt-free, note.
What is vegan canon for archaeological sites? Are whale bone tools tainted by the fate of history's dead whales? What about lesser animals? (I understand that elephant ivory is forever tainted, for instance, but how about feathers?)
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 2) by choose another one on Tuesday December 06 2016, @09:01PM
> Does 'animal cruelty' have a half-life?
It must have, but it is conveniently left unstated, because the five pound notes are _plastic_ - which is made from fossil fuel which is made from dead plants and dead animals.
(Score: 4, Informative) by AthanasiusKircher on Tuesday December 06 2016, @09:12PM
Second, the £5 is legal tender. If I buy something from them and they refuse to accept legal tender in return, then what happens? It's a bit murky (lots of common law rulings), but there's quite a bit of precedent to say that the goods are free.
Not quite. First, this issue is actually covered in TFA, and the owner basically has said if anyone tries to push the issue, she'll just donate the note to an animal shelter.
But there are lots of misconceptions surrounding legal tender. "Legal tender" has a very specific and technical legal meaning [royalmint.com]. No one in the UK is required to accept "legal tender" [wikipedia.org] for any transaction that hasn't yet taken place.
Legal tender only comes into play when a DEBT exists. Once a debt exists and someone sues you in court, they MUST generally accept any legal tender for payment of that debt.
If you go to a store and say, "I want to buy X" and they say, "Sure, you can have X if you give me three goats," then you can't say, "But I don't have goats! You must accept my 'legal tender' that is equivalent to the price of three goats." Well, you can say it, but they still have no legal obligation to give you X. You have no right to leave the store with X.
However, if someone provides a service for you, and you are now in their DEBT, then they are obligated to accept payment in legal tender to satisfy that DEBT. If they request payment in goats up-front, though, and you refuse, they can't be required to accept "legal tender" instead. You won't get your service.
Basically, normal everyday transactions are still effectively "contracts" even if handled informally and verbally. You can write up a complex contract of sale that involves delivery of various goods and services in exchange for other goods and services, with no cash involved. Most stores don't go that route, because... well, using a monetary standard is convenient for all sorts of reasons.
To get back to the case at hand -- if the restaurant requests payment up-front for their food or service, then there's likely no legal question that they can simply refuse service to you if you only offer a 5-pound note. If, on the other hand, they provide you the service FIRST, the law gets more murky. If they had a sign up prominently which said, "No 5-pound notes accepted!" they might make a legal argument that you were forewarned, BUT the whole point of "legal tender" is generally that if they sue you in court they have to accept any "legal tender" offered as a payment of debt. So they'd probably have little legal recourse if they provided the service before asking for payment. They could sue you, but then they'd have to take the 5-pound note anyway.
My guess is that if they had any problems with a LOT of customers who tried any shenanigans, they'd just make a "pay up-front" policy, which would likely give them a legal excuse to refuse anyone who wanted to pay in denominations they didn't like. But since their customer base is probably likely to subscribe to their perspective on this anyway, it seems doubtful they're going to get a significant uprising in customers over the issue.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 06 2016, @03:32PM
See subject.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 06 2016, @04:01PM
Yes, your comment is neither interesting nor important.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Tuesday December 06 2016, @03:40PM
How about gold coins where the gold is mined by slave labor children?
Also those plants they're eating probably were not pasture raised and the slaughtering process for plants is violent, torn apart while the plants are still alive in some cases. Absolutely brutal and unacceptable. I've seen the farm where my beef is raised and the butcher at least had the decency to kill the thing before chopping it up. Clearly I am far holier than those unethical brits.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 06 2016, @03:43PM
> How about gold coins where the gold is mined by slave labor children?
I'm pretty sure they don't take gold coins as payment either.
Must you virtue signal every time there is a story about people you don't like?
(Score: 2) by Kromagv0 on Tuesday December 06 2016, @04:46PM
I've seen the farm where my beef is raised and the butcher at least had the decency to kill the thing before chopping it up.
This probably means you are getting better meat than you otherwise would as well, unless you live next to a giant feedlot with cattle knee deep in their own filth.
T-Shirts and bumper stickers [zazzle.com] to offend someone
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 06 2016, @04:59PM
No the McDonald's is down the road, but I don't call them cattle, sheeple suffices.
(Score: 2) by Zz9zZ on Tuesday December 06 2016, @06:40PM
While this is definitely a trollish style of commentary I do think it brings up a very good point. There is a lot of suffering caused by manufacturing various items, and the suffering of people should be more important to us than the suffering of animals**. Yet many vegans will use their phones and wear child labor clothing. If they are going to be vocal about minuscule amounts of tallow in printed bills then they should be outraged at a LOT of other things. Yes, I realize the store is probably doing a publicity stunt, but the point still stands. I guess the answer to that conundrum is that it is easy to avoid animal products, ingredients are clearly labeled. Avoiding products produced unethically requires a lot more investigation, and we have a low threshold for inconvenience.
**I'm also one of the weirdos that feels more for animals than people (usually), but I think that is a symptom of our society being so sick that we have a form of self species loathing whereas animals are basically innocents at our mercy.
~Tilting at windmills~
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday December 06 2016, @07:30PM
While this is definitely a trollish style of commentary
"-ish style" sure I guess if sarcasm turned up to 11 is trollish style. I wouldn't agree with that, but I wouldn't disagree too strongly either. For true trolling, I think you need an element of off topic-ness or at least concern trolling to really be trolling. Like if the actual story was about the tech behind "sous vide eggplant" menu item at their vegan restaurant and I rolled the above in, that would be totally trolly. I'm not sure if sous vide eggplant is biochemically possible, now I'm off topic trolling myself with daydreams... Well, it would be technically interesting if possible which I think not. I think you need the heat of carmelization reaction to make eggplant taste edible-ish. Probably.
anyway,
and the suffering of people should be more important to us than the suffering of animals
a form of self species loathing
That loathing is a common problem among progressives and nothings more progressive than being vegan and self loathing of ones own race or culture. Progressivism is the white people disease, in that you don't see, oh, I donno, Chinese for example, hyperventilating on social media over who's better at self flagellation over how awful their own race is and how awful their own country is (well, without a really good situational excuse, like Tienanmen Square or Mao or the crap they sell us at walmart or whatever)
So I'm just saying that tactically you're not gonna get anywhere with someone proudly being holier than thou progressive by being vegan and not accepting contaminated banknotes because their hands are too clean compared to us losers with an argument that self loathing is no way to go thru life when self loathing is the core of their belief and values and social hierarchy system. I mean yeah I agree with you that tactically thats a reasonably good argument against people under normal conditions, but in an article about vegans so holier than thou they can't touch their countries filthy money, that's so not happening.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Zz9zZ on Tuesday December 06 2016, @08:23PM
Heh, well I agreed with your original post to a point, but this one is going off the rails. Sure a minority of liberals have a rabid loathing of white males and conservatives, but I write them off the same as I write off the rabid creationists etc. protesting outside abortion clinics. The wild fringes will always be there on both sides.
My gripe is the hypocrisy and in-your-face attitude of some people that make a huge deal out of something incredibly minor (such as this story). I think you're projecting your biased viewpoint of vegans / progressives way too much, the vast majority are not self loathing they just see actual problems in society. Its also not a holier than thou, its a brain aneurysm forming when conservative types refuse to acknowledge the very real issues we have in our society. Racism sure as hell is still real, but its getting better. Animal cruelty is totally real and hasn't changed much. Income inequality has been getting worse for a very long time and its causing a huge amount of societal problems that are going to really kick in during the next decade or two if we don't do something about it. Climate change is real and the world needs to take steps to mitigate the long term damage.
All these points are supported by progressives / liberals and they are all very real problems. We can argue about solutions, but when you refuse to accept the hard evidence that these problems exist then you will run into the "holier than thou" attitude. This goes both ways, I see the same attitude in the conservative base on this site all the time except it comes off more as angry insults.
The US has a ton of problems, but they are swept under the rug with a lot of bureaucracy, media disinterest, and blame shifting. Stop the mindset of us vs. them, whenever you point the finger at "them" realize that they can be equally pointing the finger right back. The struggle is we the people vs. the oppressors. Always has been, always will be. Any success can be rolled back, constant vigilance etc. etc. Right now we've been successfully divided by race and class issues.
~Tilting at windmills~
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday December 06 2016, @09:13PM
Well said!
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday December 06 2016, @09:08PM
Good point. Go fruitarian.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by mendax on Tuesday December 06 2016, @03:46PM
They could do all their business with coins. Of course, that's a lot of coins. I wonder if they would feel the same way if the new fivers were greased with tallow made from the fat of human corpses, people who died of heart attacks or were killed in accidents?
Personally, I think these people are hypocrites. By-products of animal slaughter make their way into all sorts of products, such as the dyes used in plastics.
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Tuesday December 06 2016, @04:09PM
It also pains me to point out that even vegan food involves animal death. How many field mice were crushed by the combine harvester that collected the wheat in your bread? How many birds and bugs are killed in the orchards either deliberately for pest control, or accidentally during harvesting? I really don't think the planet would support the current population if every morsel of food had to be hand-picked and organically grown.
I have nothing against vegans, in fact I admire their dedication and the sacrifice they are prepared to make for their beliefs, but I do get the feeling that the effort of going vegan is not worth the tiny returns above going vegetarian.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by mendax on Tuesday December 06 2016, @07:09PM
Indeed. Death is required in order for people to eat. Who is to say that plants don't suffer as they are mowed down, picked, or starved for water or plowed under when no longer useful?
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
(Score: 1) by Francis on Wednesday December 07 2016, @04:12AM
Vegans, at least the ones that aren't insane, generally draw a line when it comes to intent. They'll typically use medicines that are tested on animals if they don't have other options and they'll eat fermented foods as bacteria aren't high enough on the food chain to be aware of anything that goes on.
I've even heard vegans acknowledge that if you're genuinely malnourished, you might have to go off the diet to build up your strength.
It's rather unfortunate, that in recent decades there's been a slide towards the mindless type of veganism that doesn't pay any attention to the health consequences that can come from improper diet.
(Score: 2) by CoolHand on Wednesday December 07 2016, @01:11PM
Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job-Douglas Adams
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday December 06 2016, @09:15PM
How about if Americans donated the necessary tallow, taken from them voluntarily with liposuction? Everybody wins.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 07 2016, @05:51AM
I wonder if they would feel the same way if the new fivers were greased with tallow made from the fat of human corpses, people who died of heart attacks or were killed in accidents?
Is this a real question, or do you already have an answer in mind? I think many more people than just vegans would have an issue with this.
Not all vegans hate humans, and not all people who come to like certain animals more than other humans are vegans. It's easy for some people to dislike humans because humans are intelligent and yet they often squander this intelligence.
Personally, I think these people are hypocrites.
I'm sure you'd also accuse them of being hypocrites if they didn't do this. In fact, if your standard is that someone is a hypocrite because they're not perfect and are merely doing the best they can to follow their principles, then there are very likely countless things that you're a hypocrite about as well.
A lot of people complain about rabid vegans, but rabid anti-vegans are just as annoying.
(Score: 2) by cubancigar11 on Tuesday December 06 2016, @03:48PM
England should really take care of this fast [wikipedia.org]:The final spark was provided by the ammunition for the new Enfield P-53 rifle.[27] These rifles, which fired Minié balls, had a tighter fit than the earlier muskets, and used paper cartridges that came pre-greased. To load the rifle, sepoys had to bite the cartridge open to release the powder.[28] The grease used on these cartridges was rumoured to include tallow derived from beef, which would be offensive to Hindus,[29] and pork, which would be offensive to Muslims. At least one Company official pointed out the difficulties this may cause:
unless it be proven that the grease employed in these cartridges is not of a nature to offend or interfere with the prejudices of caste, it will be expedient not to issue them for test to Native corps.[30]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 06 2016, @04:17PM
I understood it was a false rumour, potentially spread by Russian infiltrators. So maybe we should be looking to Putin as the source of this unrest?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 06 2016, @04:36PM
The grease used on these cartridges was rumoured to include tallow derived from beef, which would be offensive to Hindus,[29] and pork, which would be offensive to Muslims
Typical religious bigotry.
Yes many hindus would be pissed because they believe cows are sacred and should not be slaughtered.
Few muslims would give a damn because they think pigs are the opposite of sacred and don't give a damn if someone kills some pigs. The ones who really have a stick up their butt about pigs would be happy to kill a few pigs.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Tuesday December 06 2016, @04:40PM
How is it bigotry?
I would assume that the Muslim objection to the cartridges would be biting them to open them, which can be argued to be the same as consuming pork (though I'm not sure why supposedly these things had to be bitten, and couldn't just be ripped open by hand).
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 1) by tekk on Tuesday December 06 2016, @04:51PM
The issue is that for transport purposes, they would use a really thick, tough paper that's really hard to rip open by hand, thus the usual method is to use your teeth.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 06 2016, @04:59PM
> which can be argued to be the same as consuming pork
Only to someone without an understanding of what is to be muslim.
Note how the reference to hindu reverence for cows is footnoted and the reference to muslim beliefs is not.
The quotation itself only refers to hindus - in case you didn't catch it is says "caste" which is predominately a hindu thing, in part because of their belief in reincarnation.
(Score: 2) by cubancigar11 on Tuesday December 06 2016, @07:14PM
I was going for "Funny" but let me educate y'all now. First thing first - the word usage of British Raj about India and their understanding of Hindus and Muslims in 1857 was so wrong, after the rebellion of 1857 was quashed, The Queen herself decided to step in and take control away from East India Company. Now, pork was a matter and Indian Muslims have a huge problem with even the mention of word 'pork' in butcher shops of muslim dominated area. Lastly, muslims were the true force in 1857 rebellion not only because of this cartridge but because it was them who lost power of ruling over Hindus to British - a fact very cleverly exploited by the British who immediately removed beef cartridges and thus removed the Hindu support base from under Muslim agitators.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Tuesday December 06 2016, @09:14PM
Only to someone without an understanding of what is to be muslim.
Well thanks so much for explaining.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 1) by dr_barnowl on Wednesday December 07 2016, @09:37AM
The context is that you're loading a rifle under battle conditions. You're holding the rifle in your right hand, and the cartridge in your left.
You can try and tear it open with your occupied right hand and fumble it and pour powder all over the floor, causing your death because you can't shoot the enemy, or you can follow the well thought out standard military procedure, and use your teeth.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by RamiK on Tuesday December 06 2016, @03:50PM
There was this scene [youtube.com] where it was necessary to manually sift through the soil and clear out the earth worms before pouring foundations...
compiling...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 06 2016, @04:00PM
Not sure about GB, but in the USA you can't refuse any denomination of cash unless you don't accept cash at all.
(Score: 2) by EvilSS on Tuesday December 06 2016, @04:03PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 06 2016, @04:09PM
But you can refuse to do business at all at seller's will.
Where i live you can refuse to take bigger bills (i think the limit is 50€, you can refuse to take that and bigger bills) and 1 and 2 cent coins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 06 2016, @04:28PM
Not quite right. You can't refuse cash for a debt, but in cases where payment comes before product or service you can refuse any cash you wish. You can also notify that cash is not accepted before the debt is incurred (a sign, verbal, etc).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 06 2016, @04:35PM
But as always, IANAL
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 06 2016, @04:41PM
> in the USA you can't refuse any denomination of cash unless you don't accept cash at all.
https://www.federalreserve.gov/faqs/currency_12772.htm [federalreserve.gov]
Is it legal for a business in the United States to refuse cash as a form of payment?
Section 31 U.S.C. 5103, entitled "Legal tender," states: "United States coins and currency [including Federal reserve notes and circulating notes of Federal reserve banks and national banks] are legal tender for all debts, public charges, taxes, and dues."
This statute means that all United States money as identified above is a valid and legal offer of payment for debts when tendered to a creditor. There is, however, no Federal statute mandating that a private business, a person, or an organization must accept currency or coins as payment for goods or services. Private businesses are free to develop their own policies on whether to accept cash unless there is a state law which says otherwise.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 06 2016, @05:17PM
That's not what I meant. I was told (around 1985) that you can't refuse to take large bills ($100 for example) even if you don't have change, you were supposed to go get change for large bills on the spot.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 06 2016, @07:41PM
Well, you're still wrong.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 06 2016, @07:34PM
Completely untrue! The law is about DEBTS, not doing business with someone. Most business won't accept bills over a certain denomination, and that is perfectly legal.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Thexalon on Tuesday December 06 2016, @04:04PM
Somebody needs to tell them that their Carrot Juice is Murder [youtube.com]. (Fun fact: new research suggests that the Arrogant Worms were actually right about the "Don't think that they don't have feelings, just 'cause a radish can't scream" line.)
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by zugedneb on Tuesday December 06 2016, @04:55PM
...but wtf is all the hatered towards vegans?
it's jut people who decidede they do not want to have animals killed.
they do understand that agriculture itslef comes with "problems", but at least they should make them minimal...
compared to the world in large, it's not the worst type of people to come across...
old saying: "a troll is a window into the soul of humanity" + also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ajax
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 06 2016, @05:08PM
It's like when people want to complain about Christians. They want to impose their morality on everyone else.
(Score: 2, Informative) by zugedneb on Tuesday December 06 2016, @05:19PM
ah, yes... idiot warning...
the vegan violence is unbearable...
no bear could take it...
old saying: "a troll is a window into the soul of humanity" + also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ajax
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 06 2016, @06:25PM
Well, it's also because you know that 95% of them are just self-absorbed egotists who need to feel like they are one rung up on the morality ladder than everyone else. Check back on them in 5 years and they'll not be vegan anymore (though they'll try to admit they "sometimes" still eat vegan to try to save face, or insist that they still are, its just that they are not actively practicing because of such-and-such) and they will have moved onto the next moral fad. One could be active in a religion to get that feeling of self-satisfaction, but that actually takes a lot of work to maintain it (which is why everyone looks down on the loudmouthed Sunday-only moralists for being the hypocrites they are). It is a lot easier to jump from fad to fad when you get bored of the current one.
Remember how it was a thing, about 10 or so years ago, for young women to be lesbian or bi-sexual? Same thing. There are endless fads like this one could roll out.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by zugedneb on Wednesday December 07 2016, @12:56AM
u confuse general insight with the emperors new cloths...
i am a vegan, and it is based on the insight that there is a mind in an animal, and if can be avoided, then there is no need to end its existence.
other than that, i am a sane but not particuarly "nice" person...
old saying: "a troll is a window into the soul of humanity" + also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ajax
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 06 2016, @06:39PM
What do you have against red? lol
IMHO there are two major factors that drive the hatred. First, the rather basic fact that anyone doing anything that's not in the established norm of society is to be ridiculed, mocked, and made fun of until the individuals doing it come around to a more sensible way of acting and thinking as society (rightfully) dictates. I guess we can say that some progress has been made, since we're not lynching or stoning these people anymore.
Second, since many of our plains states entire livelihood stems from the factory farming cattle industry, it only seems natural that they'd attack a lifestyle that doesn't require you purchasing their products.
Again IMHO, it's not the animal products in and of themselves that are wrong, but merely the way we currently go about producing the raw materials, and maybe who is producing it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 06 2016, @06:49PM
Its the hypocrisy and over blown media attention. I've got no problem with vegans, but ridiculous crap lime this deserves some mocking. Also, I have a vegetarian family member who feels compelled to mention the animal's death any time other people eat meat. I think many others are tired of this behavior and the frustration gets vented here.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 06 2016, @08:36PM
First, vegans have a particularly extremist and "unrealistic" perspective on the world. There are a LOT of animal products in the world, as evidenced by this article. To forsake them all is to literally undermine all of modern society. This would be fine, except that...
Second, vegans have a reputation for being very preachy. This may or may not be a fair reputation, but it is their reputation. They aren't only living by their code, they are very vocal about it to others and why they should convert. This is annoying, and hence people get aggressive against it.
It's somewhat like the backlash against hipsters, if you know about that. It isn't enough that you don't like "sportsball," you need to make sure everybody else know you don't like it and how they are inferior for buying into the mass-brainwashing.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 06 2016, @10:54PM
Oh man, who doesn't like sportsball? Its the best one!!
(Score: 4, Informative) by darnkitten on Tuesday December 06 2016, @05:30PM
I've been following this for about a week now.
The Bank of England is already looking for "potential solutions" [bbc.com] to the problem of using tallow, which is added to the plastic note to reduce static [bbc.co.uk].
Vegans and vegetarians aren't the only ones upset over this; there have also been protests from the Jain (summary article), Sikh, [bbc.com] and Hindu [bbc.co.uk] communities.
As to the Rainbow Cafe [bbc.com] in question--they say that they are willing to "try to find an alternative and accommodate [customers] in some way," if they come in with only new fivers, but note that they haven't had any problems from customers or from the local community, where they have operated for 30 years, since posting the notice that they would not be accepting the new notes.
From the article in the summary:
(Score: 2) by vux984 on Wednesday December 07 2016, @12:07AM
"Mrs Meijland said she could not believe the amount of online abuse the café had been getting since announcing the policy."
Maybe it is because they are insane?
http://www.rainbowcafe.co.uk/our-food/ [rainbowcafe.co.uk]
"All eggs used are free range"
They won't accept fiver's with tallow in them... but they *serve* food made with eggs. WTF.
" We recycle everything possible and work as a team effort, by choice everyone is Vegetarian or Vegan, and leftovers are taken home: and even plate scrapings are recycled to my large flock of chickens, "
lolwut... ?? I certainly hope they aren't feeding any of the food scraps from food they make with free range eggs... TO the chickens.
Talk about a blind spot.
(Score: 1) by dr_barnowl on Wednesday December 07 2016, @09:41AM
The amount of animal fat accumulating on those notes from humans touching them is probably larger than the amount of tallow in them.
(Score: 2) by darnkitten on Wednesday December 07 2016, @06:27PM
True.
The perception, though, as I understand it, is that these bills are tainted (or rendered ritually unclean, if you like) by virtue of their manufacturing process. The surface contamination is removable (I know, traces remain after washing, etc., and how many of us actually wash after handling money), but the inherent corruption is not, and may even, in certain belief systems, be able to transfer its status to the handler.
Ethical considerations aside, removing a physical (and often inadvertent) soiling is generally fairly simple, but cleansing a stain on the soul is usually much more difficult, especially if one knowingly takes it on, as in this case.
Not only that, but just knowing that something is unclean/tainted can bring about a visceral reaction to it, even if, intellectually, you know that it makes little sense.
Oh, well; if humans were required to make sense, this would be a much different (and far less interesting) world...
(Score: 2) by jimshatt on Tuesday December 06 2016, @07:38PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 06 2016, @08:42PM
It's a new religion...
Like the rest, only a few are genuinely holy. The rest just use their religion to feel holier and better.
(Score: 2) by PinkyGigglebrain on Tuesday December 06 2016, @10:36PM
Unless they also refuse to serve anyone who is wearing leather (shoes/belt/purse/wallet), have diabetes (a majority of insulin is still derived from animals), is wearing silk (how many silkworms die for a tie?), etc., etc., and don't serve anything with gelatin in it (still derived from animals in many cases).
My understanding of the issue is that tallow, a fat derived from animals, is used in the fabrication/production of the polymer used in the new bill. One thing that I'm not clear on is if there still traces of tallow in/on the bill? If so then I can understand some people's feelings about the issue and they are free to refuse the bills if they choose, that is their choice. BUT to expect the treasury to recall and destroy all the currently issued bills and expect the tax payers, most of whom don't care about it, eat the loss is being unreasonable. And if they are willing to accept the currently issued bills if the new ones are tallow free then they are even more the hypocrite.
If they really care about it they should offer to cover the cost of getting rid of the tallow from the bills since they are the only ones who have an issue with it.
Any offers to put the money up for it?
(crickets chirping)
I thought so.
I can sympathize with the temples and other Holy ground issues that where originally raised but this latest declaration sounds to me like a bunch of people trying to get their 15 minutes of free advertising by making a big deal about nothing. Or as Macbeth would put it "It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."
Just my 2¥, your opinion may vary.
"Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Wednesday December 07 2016, @08:04PM
Mostly I agree with you, just wanted to pick on one point:
That doesn't seem hypocritical at all. The problem for them is that animals are potentially being killed to produce that product. Even if it's just half a cow or whatever, the product being used means there is demand for it which means someone is killing cattle to meet that demand. That's not necessarily true in every case (it could be waste product created by OTHER demands for example), but that seems to be the general principle. If they don't accept it, they reduce demand, and possibly save a life.
So if the manufacturing process changed, then the demand for tallow for printing currency becomes zero. Whether you take the bills or not at that point makes absolutely no difference, you aren't going to bring animals back to life by refusing to touch the old bills. Currency gets a *little* weird since the demand is fairly indirect, but you could still make an argument that by refusing to handle those bills they aren't adding any wear to those bills which theoretically may reduce the need to print new replacement bills by some undoubtedly immeasurably small margin.
(Score: 2) by PinkyGigglebrain on Thursday December 08 2016, @02:41AM
You do raise a valid point.
Though Tallow is more of a by-product, they get it from the fat that would normally be thrown out or burned so its more of a case of using more of the animal that was being butchered anyway. I've never heard of cattle being killed just for the tallow but I haven't researched it so it might happen. Replacing the tallow in the production of these bills isn't going to save any cattle.
If the tallow can be replaced without affecting the cost of the bill then fine, lets do it. But if it means the tax payers get shafted because a minority doesn't want any animal based materials in their money I have no problem with some people boycotting the bill, if they don't want my money I will go elsewhere. Though I have to wonder what they will do if someone eats a meal and the only money they have on them is the new fivers, what are they going to do? Call the police because they won't accept the money someone is trying to give them? I would love to listen in to that conversation.
"Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Thursday December 08 2016, @07:13PM
Yeah, you *can* still make a weak argument that being able to sell the tallow makes the whole cow worth more. So that makes beef cheaper, which makes more people eat beef, which causes more cows to be raised and slaughtered...I do think that's a bit absurd, too small to have any real impact, but I can see the argument. If *everyone* was that concerned about these things that certainly would bring some change, so I can respect it from the viewpoint of "be the change you wish to see." On the other hand, if we're killing the cows anyway, I'd say it's better to make the most of it rather than just throwing parts away.
Yeah, and then you've gotta look at the effects of that increased costs...if a single butcher ends up working an hour of overtime because of the increased tax burden, is that worth it? Though I expect it would only be fractions of a penny per person...partly because I'd also consider it not just worthless but actually unethical to destroy and reprint existing bills using the new process. Since they don't use much tallow to begin with, unless they replace it with pure gold it shouldn't change the cost that much.
It does sound like this particular cafe wasn't intending to make a huge campaign out of this, so I can forgive the lack of research...but I'd expect to see a bit more effort from someone actually pushing for the complete removal of those notes. What's the profit margin on butchering a cow? How much of that profit comes from tallow? What else could be used for producing the notes, and how much would that cost? The activists should be able to put together a "bill of materials" for that as their estimate, then if it's reasonable the government can analyze and come up with their own estimate that includes actual labor costs. And THEN we can make an informed decision about how to proceed. Or maybe we skip the government analysis if there's a ready substitute at a similar cost -- might not be worth the cost of analysis. But the responsibility of the activist is not just to protest; they must also propose a legitimate solution. Sometimes "stop doing it" is its own solution, but this is not one of those cases.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 07 2016, @01:08AM
Getting muslims to self-deport would be easier than loading them into trains. Brexit is for nothing if the non-British stick around.