Paradox

You know, I'm not against animal rights activists as a rule; the whole vegetarian/vegan trip is alright all around if that's the code people want to live by. But some of the arguments pro-vegetarianism are a bit skewed in my opinion, in fact they're downright discriminating.
I mean, that only humans are capable of murdering other animals in cold blood, to assume that that kind of intelligence is unique to us, that's just rude!
As far as I know there are plenty of examples of animals doing various kinds of thievery and/or murder in cold blood, and I'm not just talking about predators, which after all have to eat something. I'm talking about birds who steal each other's food, leaving the other to starve, or who kill each other to the same effect and various other species that practice cannibalism even in situations when it's not crucial to their survival.
In honesty I think it's a tired argument that animals aren't sufficiently sentient to take responsibility for their actions or that they all abide by a common instinctive code at all times.
Not only does this mistake the capabilities of certain animals, it is quite simply a statement of human supremacy to claim that humans have patented imaginative displays of cruelty! While we should take some measure of pride in having invented obscene methods of torture and phenomena like genocide, it's quite unfair to leave animals out of the game. Sadistic sentient creatures of the world unite!

On a different note, I've started watching the activities of the English TV channel Sky One more closely after they've started adapting Discworld novels as miniseries. Their adaptation of Hogfather wasn't perfect, but it was really well done under the circumstances, and while I feared the worst for their adaptation of The Colour of Magic, so far it's showing a lot of promise.