I want a sea-kitten minipet.

And you think that's not a tongue in cheek campaign?

Maybe they're too subtle.

I know this is not a "tongue in cheek campaign," I'd love for it to be.

http://www.peta.org/sea_kittens/book.asp

http://www.peta.org/sea_kittens/about.asp

http://www.fishinghurts.com/

It's real. I know former PETA members. They agree, PETA's nuts.

Mmm... I just had a sea-kitten sandwich with relish and mayo... yum!

I don't see how those link prove it's not a tongue-in-cheek campaign.

Sorry, but it seems obvious to me that they're deliberately playing off the absurdity of their campaign. Which given their general pattern of such, isn't that surprising to me. You may think they're nuts, I might agree, but I think in this case they're deliberately being silly for a reason.

http://www.petakillsanimals.com/petakillsanimals.cfm

I'd agree with you, if not for the well-known fact that PETA has no sense of humor.

Really? I don't think you could do have the campaigns they've done without a sense of humor.

Oh, and for the Petakills website linker, those statistics are deceptive. You shouldn't believe those lies.

Really? I wouldn't think they could do have their campaigns without a sense of humor. Now it may be deadpan humor, but it's still humor.

Oh, and your website's statistics are false. Also they're a bit absurd in their reasoning in other places too. If you're really curious, I suggest you contact the Virginia gov't instead, they can give you real numbers.

Damn, sorry, disappearing post, thought it got lost, but there it was!

Oh well.

"Really? I don't think you could do have the campaigns they've done without a sense of humor. "

The thing about having a sense of humor is, you have to laugh. Or at least deliver your straight lines with a wink. PETA does neither.

PETA is either the dryest, most deadpan satirist on the planet, or else they have zero sense of humor. And since one of their campaigns was to equate factory farming to the Holocaust... I sure hope they're not trying to be funny.

You're either being argumentative for the sake of being argumentative, denser then lead, HIGHLY naive, or a combination of any of those three.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=99249669

I'm not sayin' NPR ain't infallible or invulnerable to "trickery." I'm just sayin, creating a website that tries to get parents and children to associate fishing with sticking a hook in a kitten's mouth and dragging it behind a car is compatible with an organization that tries to get its members to stop using refined sugar because harvesting damages the home of cane snakes.

Good day, sir.

To Agate: Well, there's trying to be funny, and there's doing things with a sense of flippancy, or irony. Sometimes you're not meant to laugh, but that doesn't mean it's not meant in an absurd and outrageous way that isn't exactly serious in the way you might think. It's a subtle difference, and I'm sure I'm not expressing it very clearly, but everything I see from PETA has obviously been meant in a less than serious sense, and a lot of the critics I see about them seem to be missing it.

To RyuH:

I'm sorry if it upsets you, but I'm convinced that they're being outrageous and aren't as dumb as you're trying to make them out to be. I don't know how I could convince you of it, but that's the way it seems to me. It's a clown-job, and they know it. Too bad you don't know they know it. Then you might be less upset.

HoggerB
If you honestly believe that, then fair enough. But they're not joking. Not about "sea kittens," not about sugar harvesting being cruel, not about comparing farming/raising animals to the holocaust, none of it.

We can both agree they're over the top. You just seem to think they're trying to make a point by being silly, correct? If that's so, I have to respectfully disagree. They are for real, and they are indeed that out of touch with reality.

A shame really. "Real" animal rights organizations have to live down PETA's stunts.

the factory farms/holocaust reference was not first pointed out by peta, but by an actual holocaust survivor, Isaac Bashevis Singer.

One of the ways in which the 3rd reich was able to talk people into caging, torturing, and gassing millions of jews was by dehumanizing them.

"In relation to [animals], all people are Nazis; for the animals, it is an eternal Treblinka"

Just because something makes you uncomfortable does not automatically give you the ability to toss it aside as a false premise.

i agree that peta are not helping by doing silly things like this, but whenever someone brings the nazi thing up, i have to point this out.

Oh Hoggersbud, why couldn't you just have said that you were so naive? It would have saved us from, er, THiS.