The Islamic State has beheaded at least 21 Christians in Libya.

Drunken man turns off power on poultry farm, causes death of 70,000 chickens

http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/08/28/13531163-sheriff-drunken-man-turns-off-power-on-poultry-farm-causes-death-of-70000-chickens

Here is an excerpt from the article:

"Shelton was arrested and booked into jail on charges of second-degree burglary, trespass and malicious destruction of property. The property owner discovered the dead chickens Saturday morning. He told investigators that without power, the chickens will begin to die within 15 minutes. The birds, which were due to be delivered to a local processing plant the following day, were valued at $20,000. Allen Farms, which was going to process the birds, estimated its loss at $220,000, said sheriff's Chief Deputy Gary Baker."

This article is disturbing on many levels.  The first is the fact that around 70,000 chickens died.  But that's not the worst part.  You see, they were going to die the next day anyway, most likely in even more gruesome circumstances, which is the common way of killing (I mean, "processing") them.

There are two even more disturbing admissions in this article.  The first shocking admission is that without power, "the chickens will begin to die within 15 minutes".

This statement in itself can easily tell you that chickens aren't raised on "Old MacDonald's Farm" (although they might have ended up in a MacDonald's restaurant).  There is no animal in its natural environment, or even a crass imitation thereof, which will die in 15 minutes without electricity.  Most animals live their entire lives without electricity.  And 15 minutes is too short for any animal to starve to death.  Thus, three so-called _"chicken houses"_ must have been more like "meat assembly factories" - large buildings with no room for chickens to do anything, including ever seeing the sun or nature.  A break down in the ventilation system would mean soaring temperatures inside the metal boxes that people euphemistically call "chicken houses".

The second disturbing admission is that instead of regarding the approximately 70,000 chickens killed as sentient beings, the whole article is about "property damage", with figures on how much the companies lost due to the destruction of their inventory.

Would this article bother you?:

"August 29th, 1745: A slave ship sank off the coast of West Africa, killing 26 men, and destroying its cargo of 248 head of nigger worth upwards of 1,000 doubloons."

Maybe you can see how that attitude towards animals bothers me.  And I hope that this article about chickens would bother most people living in the future - the sooner the better.  Aww...  Too bad.  Some companies lost money.  In the end, this is a massacre of tens of thousands of sentient beings, yet this end for them might have been less cruel than what would have awaited them the next day had everything gone according to plan.

70,000 more chickens have quietly died just in the United States in the time it took you to read this.

9 billion killed per year / 365 days = 24,657,534 killed per day
24,657,534 / 24 = 1,027,397 killed per hour
1,027,397 / 60 = 17,123 killed per minute

17,123 x 4 = 68,493 killed every 4 minutes