Thursday evening I wrote from on-board a Southwest Airlines flight. I thought I'd spend the flight reading the excellent Pro Drupal Development book that I'd picked up earlier in the week. Instead I spent the flight talking with Paul Engemann, Larry King's brother-in-law, and the wife of a pilot on the way to support her husband's run in the Western States 100-Mile Endurance Run. The wide-ranging discussion covered everything from raising kids to traveling the globe and even multi-level marketing. While not as productive in the work-a-day-world sense the conversation was an enjoyable break.

In a rare turn of events I'm actually going to recommend that people goto PETA's GoVeg.com website and vote in their poll. One of the contestants in their sexiest vegetarian celebrity poll is Carrie Underwood. Unlike many of the blogger-vegetarians who try to convince others at every turn that they have some great reason that everyone should convert to their views Underwood has a more reasonable approach. This is what she recently said:

"People think it's such a hard thing," she said, "but it's really not. It's just about substitution. I don't go preaching to people that 'Oh, you don't need to be eating meat' because I don't like people preaching to me, so I'm not gonna preach to them. Everybody else can eat whatever they feel like eating if that makes them happy, but there's several lines of food. I'm not gonna go through them all but it is a process, and I love my Whole Foods and I love my Wild Oats. I'm good with the things that I eat."

Undoubtedly she'll be kicked out of the vegetarian movement by an angry vegan who knows best. While we're on the topic of PETA and other hypocritical groups it is time to take a look at those who suggest vegetarianism is environmentally more sound than a traditional diet. The reality is that a balanced locally produced diet is far more environmentally sound than pumping carbon-dioxide into the air to move lettuce, rice and other foods around the globe.