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[mmm3587]

I'll weigh in on these issues:

I'm unconvinced that the fact that dogs like to do something prevents it from being inhumane. Many dogs, including dogs bred for digfighting, are bred to be vicious. They enjoy tearing the throats out of other animals. That doesn't make it appropriate or good for them to do it, in my moral judgment.

Similarly, dogs bred for pulling sleds in freezing temperatures "want" to do just that, but that desire is wrapped up in some weird evolutionary/breeding relationship with the desire to please their masters. It's not uncommon for a dog to die of exposure during the race, and many dogs will also run themselves to death, too. This is a result of centuries of breeding for these traits. If you think that a bunch of wild dogs want to run until they die or pull sleds in the freezing cold until they die, you're nuts. They want to fuck each other, eat and sleep.

My dog likes to tear up the trash and get into stuff that could hurt him. When he was a puppy, he used to eat his own shit, too. That doesn't mean those things are good for him.

As for bicycling, I'm a little surprised that people actually think that Lance Armstrong is the "greatest living athlete" or whatever people have said. His sport (which is certainly is, a sport) is of endurance and strategy. Skill is involved, but you can't claim that it engenders the kind of skill that professional soccer, baseball or basketball does. Or golf. To me, atheticism also includes extremity/eye coordination and the ability to sprint, jump and change direction quickly. Sports like football, soccer, baseball, basketball and hockey all have these in spades. In cycling, all you do is push pedals and slightly move your hands to change direction. I'm not belitting it, but I think that if you put, say, Alex Rodriguez, Ronaldo, Tiger Woods, Lance Armstrong and a bunch of similarly elite athletes from a wide variety of sports in a contest where they did all the sports, a lot of guys would come out ahead of Lance Armstrong. Or mayhe they would not, and then I would believe that he is the greatest living athlete. But the fact that he has dominated a sport like cycling, even when it is more so than other elite athletes have dominated their sports over a similar period (impressive as it is, especially given the cancer thing) does not, in and of itself, cause him to be the greatest living athlete.

Edited to change "common" to "uncommon" and to say, "Damn, somebody beat me to the breeding thing."