What's for dinner?

I've been enjoying some of the--interesting--commentary of Nickolas Conrad (aka "Atheists are Sexy") in the Opinion section of the Daily Watermelon. Today he wrote a piece entitled Humans Inherently Owe Animals in which he loosely states that humans are being haunted with E. coli and other contaminants as nature's way of saying "Ha!" to our consumption of their flesh. First, I sincerely doubt that nature has a sense of revenge like this. If that were true the carnivore population of Earth would probably always be sick.

Second, I love my meat (just about any kind!) and I'm not about to let natural justice get in my way. Mother Nature is a cruel strumpet, just look at Hurricane Katrina, and I plan on taking a bite out of her before she does likewise to me.

Next, humans (as far as carnivores go) are the most gentle slaughterers on the planet. Everyone has seen those nature shows where a lion or wolf takes down a gazelle or deer, tearing at their flesh, sometimes for several long minutes, causing exceptional pain and fear to the prey, and often beginning to feast while that prey is still alive and breathing! But does PETA get upset with those carnivores? I'm just saying...Can anyone say "double standard?"

Mr. A. A. Sexy accuses us of being "speciesist" because we show a preference for eating other animals. Is he suggesting we bring cannibalism back, just to make it fair?

Finally, he made note of the fact that we share a common ancestry by the theory of evolution, and are therefore responsible for the comfort of our biological relatives. That's all well and good, but where does that leave us? With this logic we can't eat plants either since we have a distant relative in common, although it would make for one strange family reunion.