My problem, Kat, is not in the use of cat and dog fur. If you are going to wear/use fur, that you should accept the statement that fur's fur (and sometimes natural fur IS the best choice for a particular purpose). And let me say right now, I am unequivocably AGAINST causing unnecessary pain to any living thing -- animal OR PLANT.

One thing that strikes me about the story is the "skinning alive" part. It's too too reminiscent of the "Chinese/Indian/Thai/Korean/Japanese restaurants serve dog/cat/rat meat" and other such xenophobic (and racist) rumors. I'd need more proof that videotapes that alleged show such. Let's get a UN or EU commission in to settle it.

Secondly, I wonder if we aren't imposing our standards of "morality" and "ethics" upon other cultures. Historically, the Eurocentric version of "rightness" has been enforced upon other peoples because it was backed by superior weaponry. Sometimes this was good -- the suppression of Thugee and Sutee in India by the British leaps to mind. More often it destroyed and continues to destroy entire cultures -- the missionaries in Polynesia, the demolition of the hunting/trapping cultures of the Arctic peoples. And sometimes, such as in the so-called Opium Wars, it forced something onto people that was ultimately rooted in pure greed and which destroyed many lives.

I'm against this Moral Imperialism. If you want to barbecue a dog, as has been and is done in Korea and among certain American Indian Nations, I don't care as long as the killing is done humanely. If you want to eat rat, fine (my brother shared a meal of rat with the Kit Carson Scouts when he was in Vietnam). Cat, fine (I know people who have eaten mountain lion and that, after all, is just a matter of size). You'll pardon me if I don't partake, though.