[Editorial comment: I have very little control over Wode Toad’s posts.]

Even the Bleeding New Yor Times can be sensible once in a while.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/06/opinion/sunday/dogs-are-people-too.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
It does, however, raise the disturbing question: if personhood is limited to beings who show similar brain activity patterns to humans, are we limiting it to beings we can coax into a huge machine?
The question is also easy for dogs, whom we already consider junior family members, but what of pigs, who seem to have as high or higher intelligence than dogs, and seem to have as rich an emotional life?
What of elephants, who may excel either (even humans–I haven’t noticed that memory or empathy are really practiced all that commonly in humans)?