Opening Theory and Vegetarianism are both OVERRATED.

....I leave the thread for one day.... ONE DAY!

And I find spider pictures, from Einstein, to Lance, Oprah, to spiders???

Screw Logic. 

Oh! Philpot..What do you believe? I am flattered that you have managed to quote me twice..Forgive my ignorance but did you really believe that everything  i said, i myself practice in reality,A good exercise of empathy is humour...You obviously don't get it! I'm sorry that i used you and your contemporary notions of vegetarianism as the butt of my jokes,no i'm not sorry for that i'm sorry that it offended you..Ask yourself this before you cast aspersions about meateaters.....Do you wear leather,does any of your familiars? Do you accept medication from those that are qualified to prescribe them?  Do you wear makeup?...Do you think that the animals that helped to provide  these things were sang a lullaby as they were gently put to sleep.Everything you are surrounded by has been developed on the back of animals...does that mean you should go and live in a cave so that you do not put yourself at risk of being a hypocrite.

Oh i almost forgot...i have vegetrarian friends and they do fart alot, infact they stink. I do not put them in the cellar but i do feed them vegetables at meal times. I do have mushrooms but they grow in the garden of which my vegetarian friends tend to mow down,at my distaste as i like mushrooms.Yes they do mow my lawn from time to time. These things are true Philbot.I presonally liked the more jestfull approach.but i felt that your thin skin may approve of the more benign version.

That spider is really cool. His shakras look like 5G 10 Terrabit.

Vegetarians lack vitamin B12 in their diet as we can only get this vitamin from animal flesh As a result their immune systems become weak and they catch something and eventually die. Since they do fart a lot and smell awful  maybe thats not such a bad thing. Maybe thats why they call it a diet! 

Eat meat and live forever!

It does and iron is available as well. There is no reason to cause all that misery. I haven't eaten meat in many many years and I'm still here, my brain is working perfectly fine, I have no overweight and I can look an animal straight in the eyes.

He sat down. The waiter approached. 'Would you like to see the menu?' he said, 'or would you like meet the Dish of the Day?' 'Huh?' said Ford. 'Huh?' said Arthur. 'Huh?' said Trillian. 'That's cool,' said Zaphod, 'we'll meet the meat.' - snip - A large dairy animal approached Zaphod Beeblebrox's table, a large fat meaty quadruped of the bovine type with large watery eyes, small horns and what might almost have been an ingratiating smile on its lips. 'Good evening', it lowed and sat back heavily on its haunches, 'I am the main Dish of the Day. May I interest you in the parts of my body?' It harrumphed and gurgled a bit, wriggled its hind quarters in to a more comfortable position and gazed peacefully at them. Its gaze was met by looks of startled bewilderment from Arthur and Trillian, a resigned shrug from Ford Prefect and naked hunger from Zaphod Beeblebrox. 'Something off the shoulder perhaps?' suggested the animal, 'Braised in a white wine sauce?' 'Er, your shoulder?' said Arthur in a horrified whisper. 'But naturallymy shoulder, sir,' mooed the animal contentedly, 'nobody else's is mine to offer.' Zaphod leapt to his feet and started prodding and feeling the animal's shoulder appreciatively. 'Or the rump is very good,' murmured the animal. 'I've been exercising it and eating plenty of grain, so there's a lot of good meat there.' It gave a mellow grunt, gurgled again and started to chew the cud. It swallowed the cud again. 'Or a casselore of me perhaps?' it added. 'You mean this animal actually wants us to eat it?' whispered Trillian to Ford. 'Me?' said Ford, with a glazed look in his eyes, 'I don't mean anything.' 'That's absolutely horrible,' exclaimed Arthur, 'the most revolting thing I've ever heard.' 'What's the problem Earthman?' said Zaphod, now transfering his attention to the animal's enormous rump. 'I just don't want to eat an animal that's standing there inviting me to,' said Arthur, 'It's heartless.' 'Better than eating an animal that doesn't want to be eaten,' said Zaphod. 'That's not the point,' Arthur protested. Then he thought about it for a moment. 'Alright,' he said, 'maybe it is the point. I don't care, I'm not going to think about it now. I'll just ... er ... I think I'll just have a green salad,' he muttered. 'May I urge you to consider my liver?' asked the animal, 'it must be very rich and tender by now, I've been force-feeding myself for months.' 'A green salad,' said Arthur emphatically. 'A green salad?' said the animal, rolling his eyes disapprovingly at Arthur. 'Are you going to tell me,' said Arthur, 'that I shouldn't have green salad?' 'Well,' said the animal, 'I know many vegetables that are very clear on that point. Which is why it was eventually decided to cut through the whoile tangled problem and breed an animal that actually wanted to be eaten and was capable of saying so clearly and distinctly. And here I am.' It managed a very slight bow. 'Glass of water please,' said Arthur. 'Look,' said Zaphod, 'we want to eat, we don't want to make a meal of the issues. Four rare stakes please, and hurry. We haven't eaten in five hundred and sevebty-six thousand million years.' The animal staggered to its feet. It gave a mellow gurgle. 'A very wise coice, sir, if I may say so. Very good,' it said, 'I'll just nip off and shoot myself.' He turned and gave a friendly wink to Arthur. 'Don't worry, sir,' he said, 'I'll be very humane.' It waddled unhurriedly off to the kitchen.

Philidor_Position I thought this was a great comment.  One of my best friends (a truly amazing woman for many reasons) is a vegeterian due to the fact that when she was young she saw an animal slaughtered and harvested (I'm not sure if that's in the right order).  Regardless she almost never gives me any grief for all the meat I consume, even when I'm hungry like a wolf.  

Rooperi, if what you said is accurate, I think farming practices in South Africa are vastly different from other places.

To the individual who stated: "I don't think a human's life is, inherently, more valuable than the life of a cucumber."  I just might agree with you.  I'd have to examine the individual meticulously; primarily the contents of their... id, ego, and superego.

Corrijean, indeed people are a species of animal, and in the wild a lot of them would have been killed off by natural selection.

Bicarbonatofsoda, regarding post 240: WTH!?!  Is that a spider?  If I saw that creature I'd probably put my blade through it in the blink of an eye, and I don't care if the thing wants to live forever.

Zborg, I think vegeterianism may be overrated, but I know that my perspective is biased on the topic.

Are you from Jersey?

Forget I asked.

I couldn't care less, honestly.

In retrospect, I could care less.  I could easily say something which would leave a strong impression.  I usually resist the urge to really screw with a woman's head though.  

How's that ID working out for you?

Was that a compliment?

Sometimes I'm old-fashioned.

Let's SUM UP this thread -- (with deference to @Matthew11)

• Playing reversed openings with the white pieces (might) save you immense amounts of study time.

• Eating free-range and organic (CANNOT) save you from immense amounts of opprobrium from both sides.

• There's a firestorm / shite storm to survive, if you deviate too far out of balance, in either of the two propositions argued above.

Praise the Lord, and Pass the Ammunition. 

Great comments and pictures, everyone.  Except for those Monkey Brains -- Ewh, Yuk.

Good point Zborg, balance is important.  Of course you know this being the master martial artist that you are.

But remember, I opted for lasagna (with meat sauce), when the chips were down.

And for the Modern Defense, when the QGA and Petroff became too overwhelming for me at USCF Quick Chess speeds.

People are so touchy about food and Chess openings, (myself included). 

The ID is interesting.  Bicarbonatofsoda has this great little sequence on her profile with a dolphin and a cat that's worth checking out.

(There's a little extra attention for you which I'm sure you appreciate.  You know that could have gone very different, but I'll leave it that.)