Looks like people are increasingly willing to do disgusting stuff for money...

I'd say it's all Virgin Mary Grilled Cheese's and Golden Palace Casino's (the buyer of that piece of ****) fault in starting this bad trend...

Look what has happened when people place money in front of morality...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A45618-2005Mar17?language=printer

'Save Toby' Site Draws Rabbit Reactions

By David Segal
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, March 18, 2005; Page C01

Toby is a bunny with wheat-colored fur and innocent brown eyes. He's about 10 inches long and the picture of fuzzy-wuzzy cuteness.

Sadly, in a matter of months Toby will be chopped, skinned, sauteed and served in a wine sauce.

Maybe.

The anonymous operator of Savetoby.com has vowed to take this beloved pet to a butcher, slaughter the animal and then devour him in a midsummer feast, unless visitors to the site send $50,000 by June 30. You read it right: Send money, or the bunny is dinner.

"I don't want to eat Toby," the site operator writes on the home page, "he is my friend, and he has always been the most loving, adorable pet. However, God as my witness, I will devour this little guy unless I receive 50,000$ USD into my account from donations or purchase of merchandise."

To underscore the gravity of all this, there is a section with recipes for, among other dishes, Lapin Braise (take "1 Toby cut in serving-sized pieces, flour for dusting with salt and pepper"), Moroccan Hare Tagine ("Ingredients: Toby, olive oil, cinnamon") and Toby Confit ("Place Toby's legs together with the sliced garlic and rock salt in a bowl overnight"). In the gallery section, there's a photo of Toby on a cutting board, just to make sure you get the idea.

To date, if the site's claims are to be believed, more than $18,000 has been raised to rescue Toby from the crockpot. But verifying that figure is impossible, and the site could be nothing more than a darkly comic and rather inspired way to make some quick cash. This is not the first send-money-or-Fluffy-gets-it scheme in history. What's certain is that a) Whoever runs this site owns a very cute bunny, b) the site is selling more than 90 Toby-related products and c) thanks to some careful planning, the identity of the bunny's keepers is a well-kept secret.

Oh, and d) some animal-rights people are really really peeved.

"We've received hundreds of death threats," says a guy who calls himself James and who readily admits that James is not his real name. In response to an e-mailed request for an interview, he called Wednesday afternoon and would say only that he and his business partner are in their twenties and live on the East Coast.

Are you really going to, you know, eat the little fella?

"There's no doubt about it," said "James." A few of the angry e-mails the threat has generated have been posted on the site. A page dedicated to feedback quotes letters such as this: "I would just like to warn you that if you do not take down your Save Toby web site immediatly [sic], I will have you arrested for the felony crime of extortion." Judging from their replies, the webmasters sound unconcerned, flippantly so.

Even the most vocal bunny lovers out there say that although Savetoby might be distasteful, its operators are not committing a crime, unless they violate animal cruelty statutes. A spokeswoman for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals counseled everyone -- the news media, in particular -- to ignore the site.

"We know from history that the more press this thing gets the more copycats there will be and the more animal deaths," spokeswoman Jen McClure writes in an e-mail. "Since these heartless people are encouraged by attention, the most effective way to discourage them is to avoid visiting their sites and to urge others to do the same."

Also appalled: PayPal, the eBay-owned online payment service. When Savetoby launched in January, a PayPal account was collecting money for the site. But after fielding complaints, the company took another look and decided in late February that the site violated its offensive-materials standards.

"I get a little sick to my stomach every time I look at that site," says PayPal spokeswoman Amanda Pires. "We have discontinued service."

She wouldn't say how much Savetoby had collected by the time PayPal opted out, citing privacy issues. Savetoby still has a PayPal link and what looks like a running donation counter, but when you click to donate you get an error message that says, "This recipient is currently unable to receive money."

But Savetoby is hardly out of business. A spokesman at Godaddy.com, the company that is hosting the site, says it has no plans to kick Toby's keepers off the Web.

"There's nothing illegal about eating rabbits," says Nick Fuller, a Godaddy spokesman. "And we haven't been contacted by any authorities with regards to any fraudulent activity on the site."

Though the PayPal link no longer works for donations, the mini-mall selling Toby stuff is open for business, says a rep for CafePress.com, which hosts the site's merchandise transactions. Up for sale: T-shirts, stickers, tank tops, coffee mugs, a tote bag, clock, mouse pads, aprons, throw pillows, thongs, trucker hats and teddy bears. Everything comes with the bunny's black silhouette, or his photograph, or the name of the Web site.

Whether you think any of this is actually funny is a matter of personal taste. What's certain is that Savetoby.com is likely part of a long tradition in the annals of prankdom. In the 1970s, National Lampoon ran a cover that featured a huggable mutt looking at a gun pointed at its head, with the cover line, "If You Don't Buy This Magazine, We'll Kill This Dog." (Apparently, we bought the magazine.) More recently there have been Web sites with the same theme, including Save Bernd!, which threatened to fricassee a rabbit by that name if the owner didn't receive a million euros by March 27. Probably not true. Bernd was originally scheduled for a garnished plate on New Year's Eve, and there is a disclaimer buried deep in the site that reads, in small print, "It's a joke."

A similar disclaimer was actually spotted on Savetoby by a visitor in early February, according to an entry at Snopes.com, a Web site dedicated to studying urban myths. "Note: this is a joke: please only donate to buy gear or help support savetoby.com."

"James" said he didn't know about that disclaimer. What he does claim to know is that Toby will be dinner unless $50,000 is raised. So $49,500 won't do?

"Uh . . . that's right," he said. "It might be hard to understand."

It might be. Or it might just be funny.



© 2005 The Washington Post Company

 

I'd still think this is no different than holding people hostage, but in fact in small print at 0.005 font somewhere at the bottom of the website that the "hostage" shown is nothing but a Jenna Jameson sex doll...

Maybe it's because of Easter that this story is once again brought up by a major media outlet so in order to fill up some space...