Common Sense Smells Funny

"If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck - it's probably a duck." Commonhorsesense.Com is a real quacker for the horse slaughter industry.
06-20-2004

'CommonHorseSense.Com' appears to be just another web site touting the virtues of horse slaughter, falling in line with other pro-slaughter propaganda ministers that would have the public believe horse slaughter is not only necessary, but "humane".

At first glance, the web site is attractive and well-organized. But there is something strange about it: the smell. A fetid odor much like a... slaughterhouse at low tide.

The web site echoes the typical pro-slaughter campfire anthems, the usual scare tactics that current pending legislation [House bill HR 857 and Senate Companion bill, S. 2352] is somehow a violation of the rights of horse owners and a democratic society; that the actual act of slaughter is humane; that horse thieves do not steal horses to make money selling to killer buyers; and that allowing horse slaughter to continue will prevent abuse and neglect of thousands of unwanted horses.

What the web site fails to address is these claims have been effectively refuted time and time again (see Horse Slaughter Facts, Where Would All The Horses Go?, and offsite link Response to AAEP Statement).

It makes one wonder why any one would develop a web site to perpetuate the same mistruths over and over again. What could possibly be gained by misleading the public? Or, more likely, who is to gain by misleading the public?

Perhaps that smell of death the 'virtually' eminates from the 'commonhorsesense.com' (pro horse slaughter) web site originates from the fact that the administrative contact, technical contact, and billing contact for the web site [as of 06-20-2004] happens to be none other than:

John Linebarger
5760 Remington Circle
Fort Worth, TX 76132
US

The same John Linebarger, the attorney, who requested an injunction that prevented the infamous Beltex horse slaughter plant from being shut down in Texas.

from CBS 11, Ft. Worth, Texas, News 03-22-2004

...Fort Worth Attorney John Linebarger represents the slaughter houses.

"Nobody really paid much attention to that statute, because states don't have the right to regulate interstate or foreign commerce," Linebarger said. "And we filed an injunctive suit to prohibit the enforcement of the statute."

from USA Today 01-27-2003

...John Linebarger, the lawyer for the slaughterhouses, says a state can't pass a law regulating interstate and foreign commerce. But Mike Ramsey, a professor of constitutional law at the University of San Diego, says states are perfectly within their rights to ban certain products. He cites, as an example, "dry" states that at times have banned alcohol. Linebarger notes that while the industry may have been illegal for the past 53 years, Texas has been making money off it just the same. "Over the years they've been taxing the business at $5 a head, $3 of which goes to USDA for inspecting the horse meat," he says.

The state may be keeping its blinders on. Ann Diamond, assistant district attorney for Tarrant County, where BelTex is located, indicates that as far as the state is concerned, the meat is for non-human consumption.

Given the domain control to John Linebarger, it would appear the 'commonhorsesense.com' web site is little more than a thinly veiled, slickly packaged promotional piece for the horse slaughter industry, orchestrated by the same gentleman that represented the Beltex horse slaughter plant.

That would explain the mysterious smell that permeates the cyberspace surrounding 'commonhorsesense.com'. Something rotten, something malevolent, something a lot like slaughtered horses.

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