Consumers of meat, eggs and dairy products might well ask what they are supporting. Do farmers care about anyone but themselves? Can't anyone see the cow for the cheese?

I will be the last person to condemn ALF [the Animal Liberation Front].

Ninety-five percent of the eggs produced in America come from factory-farmed birds. Even if free-range farms were hugely more humane, the sheer number of animals raised to satisfy people's desire for eggs, meat, and milk makes it impossible for us to raise them all on small, free-range farms.

Why go for a costly, sickly, mass-produced purebred when shelters are full of one-of-a-kind mixed breeds who are literally dying for a home?

Since we can't count on the meat, egg, and dairy industries to protect animals from the most egregious forms of cruelty, what can we, as consumers, do? Opting out of paying someone to allow animals to die in a barn fire or at the slaughterhouse seems pretty reasonable.

The bottom line is that people dont have the right to manipulate or to breed dogs and cats ... If people want toys, they should buy inanimate objects. If they want companionship, they should seek it with their own kind.

If Vice President Al Gore advocated killing rabbits to see if women are pregnant and called it a step forward for science, we'd all think he'd gone 'round the bend. We don't need to do that sort of thing anymore, we'd say. We have better, kinder ways.