Yeah, sure, we were pretty happy to get a front page article in The New York Times about the major animal welfare changes Burger King has announced. The AP, USA Today, and BBC stories were pretty great too. But ever since we first heard from Burger King that they were going to make this announcement, everyone at PETA has been holding their breath to see if we would make The Onion. And today, that dream came true. Click the picture below from The Onion's exclusive interview with Customer Support Operator Derrick Braswell for the full story:

Derrick Braswell,
Customer Support Operator
"But the cages were what pushed all the flavor tight into the animals."

Since the massive pet food recall began, we’ve gotten a ton of questions from people worried about feeding their animals Iams dry food, even though only canned food has been recalled so far. So today, PETA is holding a news conference at the National Press Club in Washington to call on the FDA to immediately expand the recall to include dry food as well as canned, until it can all be chemically tested for safety.

One person speaking at the news conference will be Pennsylvania resident Yvette Faulkner, whose cat Sassafras suffered kidney failure and had to be euthanized. Ms. Faulkner states that Sassafras ate only Iams’ dry food. Our hearts are with you, Yvette.

We’re also calling for an investigation into whether Iams knew about the contaminated food before it was recalled. Reports indicate that Menu Foods, Iams’ manufacturer, may very well have known about the contaminated food as early as February 20. The recall didn’t go into effect until March 16. Unreal.

Given Iams’ history of causing animal suffering, it will be very interesting what comes to light as this case unfolds . Remember, these are the folks that paid for this:

Enough said, for now.

My friend Allie, who sits at the desk next to me at the office, left work early a couple of days ago and asked me if I could finish up one of her projects for her. She hasn't been in the office since then, and I just kind of assumed that she was taking a well-deserved vacation. At least that's what I thought until our Burberry Campaign Coordinator sent me these pictures from an Orlando demonstration this morning. That's Allie in the middle on the right—and no, that's not what she normally wears to work. Way to go, Allie!

Does eating meat affect sperm count? Tom Simpson/Creative Commons

OK, so there is plenty of talk about the whole meat-eating/impotence connection. I mean, who can forget Rocket Boy, Brad and all the rest? But the new research in the UK linking meat consumption by pregnant women with low sperm counts in their sons 25+ years later is seriously disturbing.

The gist of it is that scientists now believe that steroids and sex hormones, like estrogen and testosterone—used to make cows grow faster—could interfere with the development of unborn babies, affecting male sperm production later in life. It makes perfect sense if you think about it: cows eat hormones/steroids, women eat cows, fetuses exposed to insane levels of hormones. As if there aren’t enough reasons to stop eating animals already ...

You can check out what the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine has to say about vegan diets during pregnancy here, and if you’re already a parent, there's some good information on raising healthy veggie kids here.

We just had our monthly staff meeting last week, where everyone gives a presentation about what their departments have been up to and shows pictures and video of the highlights of last month's work. We also get some reports on what PETA's affiliates around the world are up to, and there's usually something really, profoundly weird and compelling that they came up with (I'm looking at you in particular PETA Germany). Anyway, these are all old stories that made big headlines in their respective countries, but I got a real kick out of them, so I figured I'd share:

PETA Asia Pacific's Jason Baker, dressed in a chicken costume, was attacked by angry KFC employees at a demonstration in Egypt. This story is funnier if you actually know Jason, though of course there's a whole big WTF KFC? element to it as well:

PETA India made a headdress out of vegetables for supermodel and actor Aditi Govritikar to wear in their newest ad campaign: Use Your Head, Go Veg. Fundamentally odd as that sounds, the picture is actually really striking, and Aditi looks stunning:

And finally, PETA Germany, which never, ever disappoints, held a hilarious demo outside the offices of Agriculture Minister Horst Seehofer, who has been trying to reverse the ban on battery cages for egg-laying hens in Germany. Seehofer has also been in the German press lately for upsetting his wife by getting his mistress pregnant, so PETA Germany stood outside his office on Valentine's Day with a big sign asking him to "Have a heart for animals, not just for women." Priceless.

I don’t really know what to say about this one, so just check out the story about a Canadian woman who got sick from eating tainted Iams food from the recall.

Of course it's cruel, but I never knew just how disgusting and gross foie gras really was until I saw this picture.

Woo hoo! Check out those too-cool-for-school peta2 party animals in this MTV video segment on alternative ways of spending spring break.

These guys really like cake, huh? True, I'd be hard-pressed to find an animal rights connection with this one, but whatever, it's hilarious.

This cartoon is amazing, but the commentary is even more brilliant!

The Tofu Army is growing . . . Wanna join?

Nice review of the all-vegan Saucony Jazz, from this dude who is VERY into his shoes.

And finally, you old schoolers will remember this cover of the Caring Consumer guide featuring Eddie Izzard. Well, Eddie’s got himself a new show on FX, and it looks hilarious. Good for you, man.

allstarz.hollywood.com/Creative Commons

Just a quick little tidbit for you, because this was just too good to leave unremarked: Did anyone catch David Letterman's comments about Ringling coming to Madison Square Garden on his show last night?

"Ringling Brothers circus is coming back to Madison Square Garden. How about that? What they do, they bring the elephants right through the tunnel in midtown. … And New Yorkers don't care about elephants. Honest to god, we have rats bigger than that. I love going to the circus: what is more American than eating cotton candy and watching animal abuse? Am I right?"

You rule, Dave.

Burger King has announced a series of animal welfare improvements that put it right at the forefront of the fast-food industry in terms of holding its suppliers accountable for the way they treat their animals. As of today, the company will be requiring 2 percent of its eggs to come from hens who are not confined to battery cages, buying 10 percent of its pork from farms that don't use gestation crates, and rewarding suppliers that use "controlled atmosphere killing" (by far the most humane method available) instead of killing chickens by slitting their throats and dragging them through scalding tanks. These percentages, which amount to a huge number of animals, could be doubled by the end of the year.

These changes have been a long time coming. You may remember PETA's "Murder King" Campaign, which we called off in 2001 after the company agreed to make significant improvements in its standards, including conducting periodic animal welfare audits. Since then, PETA has been working behind the scenes with the company to improve conditions for the animals it uses for its restaurants. This new animal welfare plan makes Burger King an industry leader, and it sends a strong message to other fast-food companies (including one company which will remain nameless, but whose initials could stand for Killing Friendly Chickens) that are now going to have to play catch-up in a big way, which means good things for animals across the board.

For anyone whose reaction to this news is all, "WTF? That still means that 98 percent of BK's eggs come from battery cages and 90 percent of its pork comes from gestation crates," the short answer is that we're working on it, and that going vegetarian (and gently encouraging your friends to do the same) really is a fantastic way to opt out of all that unhappiness. But in the meantime, props up to Burger King for getting the ball rolling in a big way. Here are a few resources if you want some more info on this huge victory for animals:

• The New York Times Reports on the Story
• PETA's Victory Feature
• The History of the Murder King Campaign
• Extremely Cute Video With Pigs in It, Which Will Make You Give Up Pork Altogether if You Haven't Already
• Take the Veg Pledge

P.S. Burger King also has a veggie burger.

Inexplicably, Hooters says, 'No Pam' Creative Commons

I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for Hooters restaurants, because, in addition to being such a wholesome, tasteful place to go to with the family, they make these truly amazing fried pickles. OK, the “wholesome, tasteful” stuff is a bit of a stretch, but those pickles are seriously out of this world. Anyway, my feelings towards the place have cooled a little bit since PETA VP Dan Mathews told me what went down this week when he tried to book a Hooters in New York for a private party to launch his new book, Committed: A Rabble Rouser’s Memoir. The plan was to have Pamela Anderson host the party, where they were going to serve veggie Buffalo wings to the guests. But Hooters execs refused to allow the event, because, evidently, "PETA mobilizes strong feelings on both sides of the fence. It wouldn't make good business sense for us." How hilarious is it that a place called Hooters (for God’s sake) is getting all holier than thou at the prospect of having Pamela Anderson eating veggie burgers in one of their restaurants? I guess they’re afraid they won’t be able to measure up. Anyway, there was a great piece about it in the New York Post today, which you can read here.

I’m not mad at you, Hooters, just disappointed. I don’t want to suggest that I’m an expert on how to run a business, but if you’re the Marketing Department at Hooters, it just seems like such a lousy idea to go out of your way to keep Pamela Anderson out of your restaurants. And, as Dan pointed out, "Hosting the book party would have showed that Hooters is well rounded in more ways than one. We're always looking for ways to keep the 'T' and 'A' in PETA."

My friend Lindsay, who's on tour at the moment exposing some of the sordid truths about KFC, just sent me some pics of a little street theater she did in Memphis to turn the tables on Colonel Sanders. Lindsay is actually extremely good at just explaining the issue to people when the subject of KFC comes up, but if the opportunity arises, she likes to get downright elaborate. Check it:

Being outspoken, sexy, and super talented are three things that pretty much sum up Garbage frontwoman Shirley Manson in a nutshell. Of course, I say Garbage frontwoman, even though she’s currently on hiatus from the band doing her own solo thing, because being the emo boy that I am at heart, I’ll always love her for the 1995 Garbage song Only Happy When it Rains. But that’s another story for another time I guess . . .

Anyway, I was really excited to get to work this morning and see Shirley starring in a new anti-fur ad for PETA Europe. And whether you’re into Shirley’s music or not, there’s no denying that this is a powerful ad that will really get people thinking about where fur and fur trim really come from.

The folks across the pond report that the ad is getting mad press over there, and they’re getting lots of good feedback from the fly-posting they did in Shirley’s hometown of Edinburgh. I just found out that we have a US version of the ad as well, and if you’re interested, you can win some cool PETA stuff signed by Shirley here. Feel free to enter of course, but be forewarned, when it comes to music memorabilia I’m like Charlton Heston and his gun collection, so they’ll have to pry the T-shirt signed by Shirley out of my cold dead hands.

Just kidding . . . sort of.

I'm experimenting with more descriptive titles for these entries—I feel like this one really gets the point across. There's often some pretty wild stuff going on outside PETA HQ here in Norfolk, and I'm sometimes a little trepidatious when I come into work in the mornings, because there's always a chance there'll be a huge exhibit in our parking lot (like when we launched the Animal Liberation display), or a giant elephant sculpture outside our front doors (seriously, don't even ask), and I should have expected something this morning, since it’s that time of year when Canada gears up to disgrace itself in the global community by indulging in a bit of large-scale torture-for-profit. The bloody flag, flying at half mast outside our doors, is quite a sight if you drive by the building, and, in my opinion, a really striking way of taking part in the international outcry against the seal hunt. Just thought I'd share:

Listening to British R&B songstress Joss Stone hum a tune is pretty much all it would take for me to fall in love, but Joss clearly wanted to make sure she had all her bases covered by a) being really frickin pretty, b) going out of her way to help animals, and c) being (as I may have mentioned) really frickin pretty. And in case there's any doubt about any of that, here's the brand-new ad she did for PETA to promote vegetarianism. The lovely ad, which lists all the positive qualities that Joss identifies herself with, neglects to mention that she is just as pretty as a picture, but I'm sure that was only because they ran out of room. Check it out:

The last time I heard about The Diner, it was in the bottom of a ravine in Europe somewhere, Spain, I think. My friend Sean, who was driving it all over Europe, apparently hadn't worked out that when you’re towing a giant RV full of Jesus and other famous vegetarians throughout history, you need to ride the brakes a little harder than normal, and he wound up going over the edge of a cliff. Luckily, nobody was badly hurt, probably because Jesus was his co-pilot. Literally.

I’m not entirely sure how historically significant crash test dummies are, but its good to know that they are, in fact, vegetarian.

OK, so fast forward like five years. Now, just in time for Holy Week, The Diner, a controversial art exhibit—by political artist Greg Metz—that mimics ‘The Last Supper’ but replaces the disciples with famous vegetarians and shows the dark side of eating meat, is on a cross-country tour of the US. If you’ve never seen it, this thing is actually very cool, with likenesses of Sir Paul McCartney, Jesus, George Bernard Shaw, Louisa May Alcott, Leo Tolstoy, and other vegetarians on one side and graphic images of factory farms and slaughterhouses on the other. And it's all housed in a 1955 Airstream RV. Pretty wild, huh?

As you can imagine, it's getting lots of attention at every stop. Here’s a shot of PETA campaigner Mike Brazell, who has so far been successful at keeping it out of ravines. Have a good tour, Mike, and be safe . . .

This is actually really incredible, and it's been a long time coming. A couple of months ago, I wrote about a lab Iams was using to test its food that was under investigation by the USDA. Well, I just found out that the lab just agreed to a $33,000 civil penalty after federal investigators alleged the company committed nearly 40 violations of the federal Animal Welfare Act.

Some of the violations found by USDA inspectors were failing to provide sheep with appropriate pain relief during surgery, inadequate training of employees for animal handling and care, failure to vaccinate dogs and cats used for research, and keeping animals in cages smaller than the legal limits. You can read the full story here.

Of course, this is just one small step forward in our campaign to stop companies from lab-testing pet food. While Iams may have stopped using this lab after our investigation, the company needs to stop lab-testing its food altogether. You can help persuade them to do just that by only feeding your animals cruelty-free pet food, and by clicking here to let Iams know that you won’t buy their food until they stop testing on animals.

The largest slaughter of marine mammals on the planet, the Canadian seal hunt, is slated to start next week, and as you may remember, Anna Nicole Smith was one of its most outspoken critics. So we thought it would be nice to honor her this year by bringing back her petition to the Prime Minister of Canada, urging him to do the right thing and cancel the hunt. Due warning, this video will break your heart if you watch it, but it's important to get this information out there, and no one worked harder at that than Anna Nicole did in her lifetime.

OK, so here's Michelle Manhart's story in case you guys haven't heard it: This January, Michelle was suspended and then demoted by the air force when it came out that she had posed for a Playboy shoot. After the scandal broke, and the air force made a bunch of prudish comments, Michelle decided that if she wanted to damn well express herself, she was going to go right ahead and do it. The air force was summarily informed that they could go stuff themselves.

Sounds kind of perfect for a "We'd Rather Go Naked Than Wear Fur" ad, huh? We thought so too—and fortunately Michelle has some really strong views about the cruelty of the fur industry. According to my friend Michael, who was on hand to shoot the ad yesterday, Michelle is amazing—she's tough as nails in that badass drill sergeant kind of way, but really sweet and funny at the same time. I'm fighting the impulse to make a lame joke here about how, like, if you wear fur you better watch out. You know, because of how tough she is. But maybe it would be better just to leave you with some of the pics from yesterday's shoot. The actual ad isn't going to be coming out for a little while, but here's a little teaser:

In related news, I really want to be the one who comes up with the slogan for this particular fur ad. I was thinking it would be cool to do something with "Fur Flies" on account of the air force connection, but I can't quite make it work. Any suggestions would be much appreciated.

Oh yeah, and the story got picked up yesterday by the San Antonio news. You can read that here and check out the great video.

As you probably know, PETA VP Dan Mathews has a book coming out next month: Committed: A Rabble Rouser’s Memoir. Both Dan and the book have been getting some great endorsements lately, and these are a few of my favorites:

“I’d marry him if he wasn’t a fag.” -Chrissie Hynde

"If you read one book this year (like me), this is it.” -Tommy Lee

“Outrageous and inspiring. Makes me want to get arrested again.” -Andy Dick

P.S. For anyone who may have been offended by Chrissie Hynde's comment, which is technically a misuse of the subjunctive mood, there are some great resources here.

Former PETA intern Ashley just sent along these great pictures from her "All Animals Have the Same Parts" pro-vegetarian demonstration yesterday for PETA’s Asia Pacific affiliate.

It seems like the whole thing went over pretty damn well. The photographers in particular look really pleased with themselves for some reason. Anyway, I just wanted to give a shout-out to Ashley, who's always willing to go that extra mile to help animals (e.g., "Hey Ashley, would you mind going to Thailand, getting naked, and painting yourself like cuts of meat to point out the absurdity of treating any living being like an object? Great, thanks."). Ashley—you're amazing. Check out the pics:

We’re getting tons of calls from people who are concerned about the Iams recall, and PETA’s been a flurry of Iams-related activity this morning, so I figured I’d fill you in on all the new information. Just on the offchance that you haven't heard this story yet, here's a quick recap: After an unknown number of cats and dogs died of kidney failure from eating tainted pet food, Menu Foods, a contract manufacturer for Proctor & Gamble's Iams and Eukanuba brands, has recalled 60 million cans of pet food from stores nationwide. If you're worried about your own animals, click here for the full information about the recall on Menu Foods' site, or you can call them at 1-866-463-6738 and 1-866-895-2708. Not to cause too much alarm and despondency here, but if you do suspect that your animal has become seriously ill, the best thing to do (as always in such cases) is gently carry them to the car and rush to the nearest veterinarian.

There have been some murmurings about class action suits being filed against the company, and CBS has reported on someone in Chicago who is suing. We've also written a letter to Proctor & Gamble about this issue, which you can read here, and we're calling on prosecutors to investigate whether cruelty charges should be filed against Menu Canada, Menu Foods, and Iams for alleged failure to warn consumers about the tainted food as soon as they had the information and—just as disturbingly—apparently feeding the tainted food to cats and dogs in order to test it.

As our letter to Iams points out, this isn't the first time Proctor & Gamble have been responsible for dog deaths: Our investigation into the company a few years ago caught them cutting out huge chunks of muscle from their test subjects' legs and leaving them to suffer for days. I've posted footage of that investigation below, and you can find a list of pet-food companies that don't test on animals here.

This incident should serve as a wake-up call to Iams that it's time to abandon all laboratory testing on animals. Click here to let Iams know that you won't buy while animals die, and click here to contact Menu Foods to demand answers and an end to all their laboratory tests on animals.

Not sure how many of you will care, but I thought I’d share some cool geeky news that I’m pretty excited about.

Have you noticed how I’ve been hyperlinking the word vegetarian a bit lately? Well, our resident search guru Joel Bartlett has been at me to do it because it helps with "Search Engine Optimization." Or, in English, it helps Goveg.com rank higher in internet search engines.

Well, today, after months of super technical and top secret work behind the scenes, and after not nearly as much or nearly as technical and obviously not top secret work by me hyperlinking the word vegetarian, I’m happy to announce that GoVeg.com is now the highest ranking website on Google when you search for the word “vegetarian.”

As you also may have noticed, next on Internet-nerd Joel Bartlett’s agenda is getting his myspace profile to be the highest ranked page on Google when you search for Joel Bartlett. And he’s got some tough competition from an ABC weatherman by the same name who I will not link to for fear of increasing his search ranking . . .

All joking aside, we’re pretty psyched about this because we believe GoVeg.com is the best resource available for helping people go vegetarian, so we want it to be super easy for people to find the site. It really has taken a lot of work and many months to get there, so we’re pretty thrilled about it.

The massive Iams pet food recall has been all over the news lately, and I've been hearing a lot about it from people who are concerned about their own animals. Anyway, I thought you’d like to see the letter we sent to Iams about it all. You can click here to read it, and I'll let you know if we get any more news. In the meantime, just in case there's any confusion about this: Please don't buy Iams until they get their act together and stop testing on animals.

If you read my posts on the Iditarod in the past couple of weeks, you'll know that this particular issue gets me kind of riled up. Not only do people seem to think that the fact that it's a "tradition" somehow justifies the cruelty inherent in the event, but I've even heard people try to claim that these dogs actually enjoy the experience. I wonder if all the dogs who are killed because they don't make the cut enjoy that experience too. Anyway, here's the most recent, and (mercifully) last little piece of sadism served up by this year's Iditarod participants. As the race was coming to an end, musher Ramy Brooks, who was caught attacking his dogs with a trail marker, and one of whose dogs later died from apparently unrelated causes (call me crazy but my guess is that it was from being forced to run hundreds of miles in the freezing cold) has been disqualified from the race. Yup, ol' Ramy was actually disqualified from an event that is inherently abusive to dogs for being too cruel to the dogs. Sounds like a real winner. You can check out the story here, and if you want to write to some of the race's sponsors and ask them to make this the last year they support this debacle, just click some of the fancy buttons to the right.

I just started reading this hilarious blog called Teddy Wisdom. Heard of it? I’ve been passing it around the office, and my friend Joel has launched a new, albeit fictional, PETA affiliate called PETSA: People for the Ethical Tretment of Stuffed Animals.

In other urgent Internet news:

PETA is an answer to a question in this wedding quiz thingy.

Check out this painting with a question, then go save some seals.

In case you ever run into a Trivial Pursuit question asking which barnyard animal is most similar to the UN, the answer is chickens. Now you know.

Why can’t people get these instead of those hideous betta fish?

It doesn’t exactly have to do with animals, but this is among my all-time favorite pieces of internet folklore. Whatever. Leprechauns need love too.

I’m glad I'm vegetarian because the cows are effing pissed.

That's all I've got right now, but let me leave you to meditate with the the gentle camels of Peaceful Camel Valley . . .

My buddy Pulin, who works on the college campaign for those fast-living trend-junkies over at peta2, was in Panama City last week to try and throw a little bit of social responsibility into the potent mixture of drinking, partying, and boys and girls gone wild that is College Spring Break. You know: Sex, drugs, rock and roll, compassion for animals—all that good stuff. Anyway, a funny thing happened once Pulin and his gang brought out the chicken costume and began passing out leaflets about KFC. A probably well-intentioned but slightly over-eager dude in the crowd (pictured below) decided it would be a good idea to blindside the chicken (actually a University of Florida student named Beth) and tackle her to the ground. Beth was unhurt, but the police officers who witnessed the assault were relatively peeved about the whole thing:

The story has a happy ending though. Pulin and Beth decided that they wouldn't press charges if the tackler, who turned out to be a fairly affable fellow named Dave, would agree to get in the chicken costume himself and spend some time holding a sign to encourage people to stop eating animals. Dave was more than happy to oblige. The story made the front page of the Panama City News Herald, and you can check it out here.

As you probably know, our letter to Al Gore, urging him to go vegetarian to reduce global warming, has been covered by media all over the place. But my favorite piece so far comes from a recent segment on The Glenn Beck Show on Headline News. Whether you’re a fan of Glenn or not, this certainly makes for some riveting television. Enjoy!

Every now and then, my department at PETA gets together outside of work to do a little teambuilding, brainstorm some brilliant new ways to help animals, and swap nasty rumors about people in the other departments. For the most recent social event, we decided to hit up Johnny Rockets to take advantage of the 2 for 1 Streamliner deal I've been talking up. Apart from a few tense moments trying to talk my friend Joel down from ordering four veggie burgers just for himself, the whole thing went really smoothly. Mylie told us all about the latest weird hippie stuff she's been getting up to, Tracy (my boss) talked a bit about her husband's sweet-ass band, and the staff at Johnny Rockets loved seeing a table of 10 scarf down a week's supply of veggie burgers like they were nothing.

Anyway, there you have it, Johnny Rockets veggie burgers: Healthy, delicious, and 2 for 1 until the end of the month. I can highly recommend it if your office does department lunches like mine does. Hell, if you work someplace that doesn't spend all its money on helping animals, maybe you can even get them to pay for it.

One of the Iams products recalled after animal deaths

They've been dying in the Iams labs, and now they're dying in people's homes. After an unknown number of cats and dogs died of kidney failure from eating tainted pet food, Menu Foods, which is a contract manufacturer for Proctor & Gamble's Iams and Eukanuba brands, has recalled 60 million cans of pet food from stores nationwide. As a result, Proctor & Gamble has announced a major recall of certain types of its food throughout the country. You can learn more about the story here.

Proctor & Gamble is no stranger to killing dogs: They've been doing it efficiently and professionally for years, and they've developed numerous ways of getting the job done, such as cutting out huge chunks of muscle from their test subjects' legs and leaving them to suffer for days before they die—as our investigation into Iams a couple of years ago discovered. Now, of course, boycotting Iams has taken on a whole new meaning since the company has shown

One of the dogs made to suffer in Iams' tests

I know I just wrote about the Iditarod yesterday, but the death toll is now three, not one.

Here's what the race marshal had to say about the last one:

“I have had an opportunity to discuss and evaluate the circumstances surrounding the death of Matt's dog.� Based upon my review of the situation at this time I have found no sign which should prohibit Matt and his team from continuing their race.”

Really, no sign that he shouldn’t continue?! How about the fact that one of his dogs just collapsed and died? Give me a break.

If you haven’t already and you'd like to do something about this, you can speak up and let this year’s race sponsors know what you think of this cruel event. Click here to help put this race where it belongs, in the history books.

Casey Affleck is the man. Love his acting, love his attitude, love his beautiful wife, love everything about the guy. And since the indie flick Lonesome Jim and blockbusters Ocean’s 11 and 12 are a few of my favorite movies ever, I was psyched to hear that he’d shot a new “Veg Testimonial” ad for PETA.

We loved the ad so much we wanted to run it all over the place including Casey’s hometown of Boston, but the networks weren’t having it. First, we tried to show Food Network viewers what happens to animals before they’re fried, filleted, and fricasseed on TV, but advertising execs didn’t have the stomach for it. Then we went for E!, MTV, the TVGuide Channel and all eight broadcast stations in Boston. Ad execs said the scenes of animals in factory farms and slaughterhouses as Affleck explains why he is a vegetarian were “too graphic.” Whatever. It is 2007 after all, so we can get as much mileage out of the ad online as we could on TV anyway.

Check out the full feature, including an interview with Casey on the set, where he says, “When people ask me why I don’t eat meat or any other animal products, I say, ‘Because they’re unhealthy, and they’re the product of a violent and inhumane industry,’” Did I just hear an “amen” from the choir or what? I told you he was awesome.

Anyway, we’ll all be hearing a lot more from my boy in the next few months. He’s already wrapped on Ocean’s Thirteen, as well as his brother Ben Affleck’s directorial debut Gone, Baby, Gone, and personally, I’m most excited to see him in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford with Brad Pitt. He’s got a big year coming up . . .

Today, PETA’s Director of Media Relations, Michael McGraw, and Senior VP Dan Mathews gave a presentation to the entire student body of one of the world’s most prestigious design schools. They were in New York City at Parsons, The New School for Design . . . that’s right, the home of Project Runway.

For years, the fur industry has been so desperate that it has bankrolled a program at Parsons offering young designers free fur to design with and underwriting fashion shows for students who put fur on the runway. But three years ago under the tutelage of Project Runway's very own Tim Gunn, the school began giving PETA equal time. I thought it was pretty great how he described his decision to fashion rag Women’s Wear Daily,

“I felt it was important to give students both sides of the story and let them be aware of both sides of the issue.”

Tim Gunn: Make it work, people!
Credit: Renee Starbright/Creative Commons

Also exciting is the fact that cruelty-free designer Marc Bouwer is mentoring juniors at Parsons this semester as they work with cruelty-free fabrics, and their designs will be shown during the class’s year-end fashion show in April. I’ll keep you posted on that.

With Tommy Hilfiger, Ralph Lauren, J.Crew and a slew of others all permanently going fur-free this year, and with the future leaders of fashion now getting educated on both sides of the fur issue in school, the future looks bleak for the fur pimps out there. And the future looks very bright for these little guys:

Credit: Roger Cullman/Creative Commons

Apparently Joe Schreibvogel isn't.

He runs a place called the G.W. Exotic Animal Sanctuary. You may remember the name because we did an undercover investigation there a few months ago. The place is a total hole, with more than a thousand animals, including tigers, lions, cougars, bears, primates, wolves—you name it. The shady joint bills itself as a “sanctuary” for rescued animals, but in reality the principal reason it exists is to line the pockets of the owner Joe Schreibvogel. They drag baby animals to malls for photo ops, the animals are punched, kicked and starved to keep them in line, and unlike any real sanctuary, they are constantly breeding the animals to ensure a never-ending flow of “cute” babies.

Anyway, the place is a pit and should be shut down. But that’s not the point of this post. Really. The point is that on the joint’s website, they boast:

“The G.W. Exotic Animal Park Now has Sponsors From 54 States and 37 foreign countries.”

54 states, huh? I didn't know they even had that many! Must be a hell of a place. If these guys are anywhere near as good at animal care as they are at geography, maybe there's nothing to worry about after all.

Remember the animal abusing monks at Mepkin Abbey from a couple of weeks ago? Just wanted to give you a quick update on that case.

This morning, PETA filed formal complaints with the South Carolina Department of Agriculture, the state Attorney General’s Office, and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) alleging unfair trade practices—including false and misleading advertising. In the complaints, PETA alleges that the abbey, which operates a factory egg farm where more than 20,000 debeaked hens are packed four or five to a cage the size of file drawer, is misleading customers with its lofty claims of humane treatment and “happy” animals. PETA filed the complaints after the abbot and public relations director of Mepkin Abbey refused to discuss retracting the abbey’s false claims and changing its advertising.

Here’s a quote from the press release we sent out, “The way that these monks treat God’s creatures is a sacrilege,” says PETA Vice President Bruce Friedrich. “Not only have the monks hideously abused these poor birds and denied them everything that God intended, they’ve also broken the public’s trust by claiming that what Mepkin Abbey does is different from what is done in industrialized factory farms. The monks are accountable for breaking the law and deceiving people who bought these eggs believing that they came from birds who were well cared for.”

I’ll keep you updated as the case progresses—there was a great piece about the story in the LA Times today, which you can check out here.

What the Iditarod is really all about: advertising and sponsorship dollars. And drinking lots of beer, I guess.

Well, the first dog has died in this year’s Iditarod. Frankly, I’m surprised it took this long, and I’m sad to say it's extremely likely there’ll be more. Turns out that forcing dogs to run 125 miles a day through subzero temperatures may not be all that good for them. Shocker. Obviously, this is common sense to those of us who act like we’re living in the year 2007, but apparently the Iditarod folks like to pretend they’re paying homage to the original race, which was along a mail route to deliver an emergency supply of diphtheria serum (whatever that is) to Nome.

Anyway, Iditaroders, next time you guys need some diphtheria serum delivered, I’m sure FedEx will be glad to help you out with that. And let’s be real here, this race is about money, plain and simple—you’re not preserving heritage or paying homage to anyone by running a few hundred dogs into the frozen ground every year.

The Ikidarod

The upshot here is that there are countless alternatives to this cruel tradition. How about a ski race along the same route—the Iskidarod maybe? Or an eBay sponsored marathon auction—the Ibidarod? The world’s largest game of hide and seek—Ihidarod. A marathon film festival—Ividarod? There actually is an event in California called the Ikidarod, where kids pull sleds on a beach, and the reality is that there really are 1001 ways for the Iditarod folks to line their pockets without hurting dogs.

Anyway, here’s to hoping that no more dogs die this year . . . Oh, and if you’re so inclined you can let the Iditarod sponsors know you feel about this absurd race here.

I got home from work the other day and turned on the TV. 1 vs 100 was on, and some of you may not know this about me, but I just love me some Bob Saget. I mean really, who doesn’t love watching Full House reruns at 3 a.m. It reminds me of a more civilized time in our society, you know, before the Olsen twins became the rubberband wrist snapping fur hags that they are now.

Anyway, 1 vs 100. So, there was a question that was something like “What food served with a pita would PETA be upset about?" The multiple choice answers were falafel, hummus, or moussaka.

Talk about PETA weaving itself into the fabric of society. Very cool. Word on the street is that PETA also made it into Jay Leno's patter on Tuesday as well (to do with our letter to Al Gore), but I was probably too busy watching my box set of America's Funniest Home Videos to catch the show. Like I said, Bob Saget, you know? Can't get enough of that guy.

Has a nice ring to it, doesn't it? Really rolls off the tongue. I think it has something to do with alliteration. Anyway, apparently Mayor Sean Ford, who rules over the Denver suburb of Commerce City with a firm but benevolent hand, has pooh-poohed his citizens' attempt to expand the symbolic reach of their eager little town by changing its name to something with a little bit more punch. Well, since we here at PETA are always inspired by stories of communities working together to make their little corner of the world a better place—and, to be totally straight with you here, because we're deadly serious about letting as many people as possible know exactly what KFC does to the hundreds of millions of chickens it kills every year—we've taken up their cause and put together a little petition to ask Mayor Ford to change his mind and change his city's name … to KentuckyFriedCruelty.com, Colorado. It really does have a certain je ne sais quoi, doesn't it? You can read our letter to the mayor here and sign the petition here.

Remember this great video about teens going vegetarian from a month or so ago? Well, it gets better. My friend Jannette is PETA’s Director of Special Gifts and she leads a glamorous life wining and dining with various dignitaries and celebrities. The other day, her glitterati lifestyle landed her in the company of none other than former Grateful Dead and now Rat Dog guitarist Bob Weir and his family.

It turns out that Bob has an amazingly cool daughter named Monet, who has been veg all her life and LOVES Ingrid Newkirk’s new kids’ book. And Bob even donated one of his guitars to auction off for PETA last year. Could this family be any cooler?

As you know, I don’t lead nearly as glam a life as Jannette and unfortunately my family isn’t half as cool as the Weirs, but nonetheless Jannette’s e-mail inspired me. I'm keeping some copies of Ingrid's new book for all the young 'uns in my family. I can't wait to hear what they think.

Damn, these victories always seem to come in pairs. Right after New Mexico announces that it has banned cockfighting, Tommy Hilfiger permanently drops fur from their collections. Citing ethical reasons for their decision, Tommy released a statement today saying:

“Starting immediately, the company will cease development of any product containing fur, and any fur garment already in production will be phased out of sales channels by the delivery of the spring 2008 collection.”

Just so you don't get the impression that these things happen overnight, here's a little behind-the-scenes for you from PETA VP Dan Mathews. Dan first ran into Tommy Hilfiger at Pamela Anderson's wedding in San Tropez in July, where they began a discussion about the ethical issues surrounding the fur industry (you know, the kind of stuff that always comes up at weddings), and they met again more recently at the World Music Awards in London in October to talk some more. Dan and Tommy had been planning on meeting again in New York this week, but it looks like that's not going to be necessary anymore. Anyway, since Pamela Anderson was responsible for the meeting in the first place, I figured I'd let her have the last word. Here's what she said about the great news when asked for comment:

"Since Tommy mostly used fur on collars and cuffs, his decision to go fur-free really puts the spotlight on fur trim, which is one of my biggest pet peeves. People who think 'it’s just a little fur trim' need to know that animals suffer tremendously for every piece of fur, and it’s unacceptable to wear any of it. Thanks, Tommy, for sticking up for the animals!"

Having been on the receiving end of a few coolly worded e-mails from our Legal Department myself, I have a suspicion that JCPenney is in a world of pain after hearing from PETA's attorneys this week about the company's claim that it does not condone the “illegal or inhumane treatment of animals.” Given that this is pretty much the only response we get from JCPenney every time we try to talk to them about their refusal to stop selling fur, there's been a fair amount of head-scratching round here about what the hell the company thinks it's up to. Anyway, nobody likes to have to bring out the lawyers, but when your big-ass company is selling fur from places that have literally zero cruelty-to-animals laws and you have no publicly available standards of your own defining what you consider to be humane treatment, you just can't get away with telling consumers that you don't condone illegal or inhumane treatment of animals and expect people to let you go about your business as if nothing's wrong. So what's the deal, JCPenney? Does all your fur come from roadkill, maybe, or do you in fact pay people to rip it from the backs of defenseless, tortured animals just like everyone else who profits from the fur trade?

After literally decades of work by concerned citizens and celebrities like Rue McClanahan and Bill Maher and the relentless dedication of Senator Mary Jane Garcia, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson has signed a bill to ban cockfighting in the state. This was Garcia's 20th year introducing the bill to ban the vicious bloodsport, so this is a massive victory for her, for everyone who worked to raise awareness about this issue, and of course for the countless birds who are forced to fight to the death for the amusement of onlookers every year.

I'd love to say that this means that cockfighting is illegal throughout the United States, but unfortunately there's still one holdout: Everybody's looking at you, Louisiana.

Needless to say, this is pretty huge, and a lot of people have been working really hard to make this happen. If you'd like to take a moment to thank Sen. Garcia for her dedication to helping birds in New Mexico and Gov. Richardson for his compassion in signing this bill into law, their contact info is below. And if you live in Louisiana, you can click here to contact your legislators and ask them (politely) what's the big holdup.

The Honorable Mary Jane M. Garcia
New Mexico Senate
Box 22
Dona Ana, NM 88032
maryjane.garcia@nmlegis.gov

The Honorable Bill Richardson
Office of the Governor
490 Old Santa Fe Trl., Rm. 400
Santa Fe, NM 87501
E-mail

As a Mac user, I make every effort to be annoyingly and irrationally biased against everything that Microsoft does, regardless of how good it actually is. Unfortunately for my techie cred, my perfect run of peevish, knee-jerk reactions to Microsoft products has come to an abrupt end with their new device for testing to see whether you're actually a human (as opposed to one of them evil Internet-trawling spam robots). Most people have had the experience of signing up for an online community or another Internet service and coming up against what looks like an eye test from Hell, where you have to attempt to duplicate a series of barely recognizable letters and numbers.

Well, Microsoft's alternative, Asirra, looks a lot less like a torture device for dyslexics and a lot more like a bonafide public service, given that the company has teamed up with Petfinder.com to allow Asirra users—who are asked to pick the cats out of a series of pictures of cats and dogs—to apply to adopt the homeless animals in the pictures. Anyway, I thought that was a pretty innovative way of combating the cat and dog overpopulation problem we're facing, and I hope it catches on. Check it out:

Here's the thing. We're a little ways away from getting shoe companies to ditch the leather entirely—though we've made some significant headway by encouraging retailers like The Gap to boycott the Indian leather industry, which really goes out of its way to be unpleasant to animals. That said, there's something particularly hideous about Nike's decision to celebrate the 25th Anniversary of their Air Force Ones by making a special edition shoe out of crocodiles. Come on, guys—couldn't you have just cranked up the Nelly and thrown a kegger or something? Nike seriously needs to fire whoever it was in their marketing department who thought that brutally killing reptiles would be a cool way to celebrate their silver anniversary.

Anyway, the good news is that people are outraged about the promotion, and Nike's been taking a lot of flak about it in the media, which has helped to raise awareness about the suffering of crocodiles used for clothing, who are often caught in the wild with huge hooks and reeled in when they become weakened from blood loss. It also gives me an excuse to post this amazing PSA featuring Gena Lee Nolin. Enjoy.

Well, hot damn. For a month now, our crack team of cuteness consultants in PETA's Fabulousness Department have been poring over this year's sizzling-hot batch of entries for our Sexiest Vegetarian competition, and they've finally emerged, exhausted from all the attractiveness, with an eye-popping line-up of spectacular, jaw-droppingly gorgeous finalists for you to feast your eager eyes on. OK, even if I hadn't run out of synonyms for "sexy" a while back, there's just no way I can sustain this kind of rhetoric for an entire entry, but hopefully you get the point. The finalists have been announced, and you can vote for the sexiest here. This year's winners get a trip to Hawaii.

Click the ridiculously sexy vegetarian below to check out this year's top twenty. And don't forget to vote.

OK, I know I’ve written about our fashion police before (those saucy minxes who pass out citations to passersby who are wearing fur, leather, or wool), but these pics—from a recent Vancouver demonstration—are too good to pass up. I’ve never seen people look quite so happy to get arrested.

My buddy Ryan, who is currently on tour with Taste of Chaos for those hard-partying scene-hounds at peta2, was busy getting himself a suntan in Florida on Friday between stops on the tour (seriously, I need Ryan's job), when who should be frolicking on the beach but representatives of KFC's parent company, Yum Brands. Turns out Ryan and his pals had stumbled upon a Yum corporate teambuilding retreat. I wouldn’t think that finding out about how your company is responsible for outrageous, large-scale animal abuse is all that great for morale-building, but Ryan, spunky little hipster that he is, was determined to find out. Here are the pics he sent in:

I just got this message from a dude named Edward Krystosek, whose e-mail address, lovetohunt1234@yahoo.com, is cleverly designed to show that despite being an avid hunter, he can still count all the way to four. The e-mail contained three different photos of Ed posing with the corpses of animals he has presumably killed. I'll spare you the other pics, but the message itself is priceless:

I figured you would enjoy seeing these.

� I will keep sending them to you since I know you will enjoy them.

� I fugure if� you harass me, I will return the favor.

Anyway, it sounds like our Ed is a regular reader, so I "fugured" I'd Google him to see if I could learn some more about him. Turns out Ed hasn't left much of an Internet trail behind him, but in the process of seeking him out, I stumbled across this wonderful study about the long-suspected link between hunting and small penis size. Apparently, Diminutive Male Genitalia Disorder (DMGD) and taking out your excess aggression on defenseless animals are inextricably linked. It just explains so much! I don't know if Ed's a sufferer himself, but if he is, it does provide a good explanation of why the poor guy craves attention so badly that he needs to send pics of himself killing animals to PETA. Here's hoping Ed gets the help he so desperately needs.

Bo, one of the spear-wielding chimps on a Senegal reservation

No, I'm not talking about an NRA convention—I'm referring to this fascinating article that was in The Washington Post the other day about these chimpanzees who have been discovered in the West African savannah fashioning spears that they use to hunt bush babies. It's been sitting in my Inbox for a few days now, because it took me a while to work out exactly how I felt about it. On the one hand, this is yet more incontrovertible proof that animals are intelligent, that they are capable of making plans and carrying them out, and that (this is the important point here) it is therefore imperative that we apply to them the same ethical considerations that we naturally apply to people based on humans' demonstrated ability to consciously experience things and, consequently, to suffer. Which means, like, not eating or wearing them, or—since we're talking about monkeys here—not stuffing them in tubes and pumping them full of drugs until they die.

Of course, the part of the story that makes me a little uncomfortable is the fact that this particular demonstration of self-awareness is a violent one, and one that itself causes suffering. But, despite the added twist of the spears, my response to this is the same as my response to anyone who says, "Why would you care about killing animals yourself when they kill each other in the wild?" (You'd be surprised how often that comes up). The mixed blessing of having a highly developed sense of ethics like humans have (for the most part) is that you still have to act morally towards individuals with a less highly developed sense of ethics—which means babies, people with low IQ's, and, yes, chimps with spears. It's only really a dog-eat-dog world if you're a dog, which is one of the many reasons I don't eat dogs, for instance … or hunt bush babies.

The thing about the truth is that it just never gets old, especially when there's nudity involved. The truth about the chicks raised for KFC is that they're horrifically abused and often scalded alive. The infinitely more palatable truth about these two chicks, who happen to be colleagues of mine, is that they don't have any clothes on. The hope is that the one truth will make the other truth easier to process, and, based on the reactions of some folks in KFC's hometown of Lousiville where this protest took place, it's working like a charm. Be careful not to get the two truths mixed up though—there's absolutely no good reason for boycotting naked chicks.

There are 19 more photos where that came from in The Louisville Courier Journal. The photographer just couldn't stop for some reason ...

So every now and then, we have these meetings at PETA where everyone in my department talks about the new animal-friendly features they have lined up for the website, and we brainstorm a few good ways to promote them on the Internet. The highlight of these meetings is always when my good friend Mylie starts raving about her latest project and we all make fun of her. Mylie, bless her heart, is the kind of girl who brings in, like, lotus nuts and fennel seeds for everyone to snack on at work, and while I haven't been able to substantiate this rumor yet, it's possible that she may have been raised on a commune. Anyway, the point of all this is that Mylie is even more pumped than usual about her new "DIY Vegan Candles" giveaway (yes, apparently not only is there such a thing as a vegan candle, but it's possible to actually construct one yourself somehow … out of soy), so I thought I'd give her feature a little love on the blog. To be fair to Mylie, the giveaway is doing really well so far, and—though I hate myself for saying this—the candles actually look kind of cool. So there you have it—you can enter to win some kickass DIY, 100 percent vegan, soy candles here. If you don't want to do it for the animals, do it for Mylie.

Did you hear about the Georgia truck driver who won half of the $390 million lottery jackpot yesterday? I’m not ashamed to admit that I had a couple of tickets myself, but seeing how I’m still slaving away over my computer, you’re correct in assuming that I’m not the one splitting it with him. There’s always Saturday’s drawing I guess . . .

Anyway, apparently the guy’s not sure what he’s going to do with his new fortune, other than “do a lot of fishing.”

So we wrote him this letter, asking him to consider spending his money in ways that don’t hurt animals. You can check out the whole letter here, and I’ll let you know how he responds.

By now, most people in the country, and certainly everyone in the blogosphere, have heard about the letter we sent Al Gore urging him to face the reality that while the steps he asks people to take in An Inconvenient Truth are certainly important, the most effective way to stop climate change is through diet change. So, for Big Al (oh and by the way, vegetarians weigh, on average, 10 percent less than their meat eating-counterparts … I'm just saying) we want to make the veg thing easy by offering to cook him food and giving him recipes.

The story has been covered all over the world, but my favorite by far is the Fox News piece that starts with “Can Al Gore be a meat-eating environmentalist? PETA says no… and is offering to cook the following meal for the former vice president to prove it!” and goes on to list the vegan recipes we are offering to cook for him. Brit Hume also talked about the issue on his show last night, which is pretty cool too.

Anyway, since this whole thing made the news, we’ve been getting tons of requests for the recipes, so here you go. Have fun!

Fried 'Chicken'
(Makes 4 servings)

Ingredients:
1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. onion powder
1 tsp. pepper
1 tsp. garlic powder
2 cups unbleached white flour
4 Tbsp. nutritional yeast (optional)
3 Tbsp. yellow mustard
1/2 cup water
2 Tbsp. baking powder
1 lb. soy chicken (Morningstar farms chicken strips)
3 1/2 cups vegetable oil

Method:
Mix together the salt, onion powder, pepper, garlic powder, flour, and nutritional yeast in a deep bowl.
In a separate bowl, dilute the mustard with 1/2 cup water.
Add 1/3 cup of the flour mixture to the mustard mixture and stir. Add the baking powder to the dry flour mixture and mix.
Dip chunks of the soy chicken into the mustard batter, then drop each chunk into the flour mixture and coat with the desired amount of "crust."
Fry the chunks in hot oil on medium-high heat in a large skillet or deep fryer until crispy and golden brown, turning as needed.

Slow-Cooked Collard Greens
(Makes 8 servings)

Ingredients:
4 bunches collard greens
4 Tbsp. olive oil
4 medium onions
4 cloves garlic, minced
4 carrots, minced
1 1/2 cups vegetable stock
2 chipotle peppers
Salt, to taste

Method:
Heat the oil in a large saucepan. Add the onions and the garlic cloves. Sauté until the onions are soft.
Add the collard greens, carrots, and vegetable stock. Cook until tender.
Season with the salt.

Cornbread
(Makes 6 to 8 servings)

Ingredients
6 Tbsp. water
2 Tbsp. ground flax seed
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup cornmeal
1/4 cup sugar
4 tsp. baking powder
3/4 tsp. salt
1 cup plain soy milk
1/4 cup canola oil
Walnut halves, optional

Method:
Preheat the oven to 425ºF. Lightly oil an 8-inch square baking dish.
Bring the water to a boil in a small saucepan. Add the ground flax seed and reduce the heat to medium-low. Stirring occasionally, simmer for 3 minutes, or until thickened.
In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, cornmeal, Florida Crystals, baking powder, and salt.
Add the flax seed mixture, soy milk, and canola oil to the flour mixture. Combine just until smooth.
Pour the batter into the prepared baking dish and place the walnut halves on top. Bake for 20- 25 minutes or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean.

Creamy Chive Mashed Potatoes
(Makes 4 to 5 servings)

Ingredients:
5 large potatoes, diced
1 cup liquid nondairy creamer (try Silk brand)
2 Tbsp. margarine
1/4 cup fresh chives, chopped
Salt and pepper, to taste

Method:
Place the potatoes in a large pot and cover with water. Bring to a boil and cook for 20 minutes.
Drain the potatoes, place in a bowl with the remaining ingredients, and mix until smooth.
Serve hot.

Chicken-less Gravy
(Makes 6 to 8 servings)

Ingredients:
2 cups boiling water
2 Tbsp. vegetable oil
3 Tbsp. nutritional yeast
1 vegetable bouillon cube
1/2 cup fresh mushrooms, diced
1/2 cup onion, finely chopped
Onion salt, to taste
Unbleached all-purpose flour

Method:
In a large saucepan, simmer all ingredients except the flour for approximately 5 minutes.
Slowly add the flour by tablespoons, whisking after each addition, until the desired thickness is reached.
Keep warm.

Preparation time: 10 minutes

All-American Apple Pie
(Makes 8 servings)

Ingredients for the Crust:
2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 tsp. salt
1/4 cup cold water
3/4 cup solid vegetable shortening

Ingredients for the Filling:
1 3/4 lbs. Golden Delicious apples, thinly sliced
1 3/4 lbs. Granny Smith apples, thinly sliced
3/4 cup sugar
1 tsp. fresh lemon juice
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1 Tbsp. unbleached flour

3 Tbsp. Earth Balance margarine, diced
1 Tbsp. soy milk
1 Tbsp. Florida Crystals sugar
Large pinch of ground cinnamon

Method for the Crust:
In a bowl, combine the flour and the salt. Mix the water with 1/3 cup of the flour mixture to make a paste. Set aside.
With a pastry cutter or a fork, cut the vegetable shortening into the remaining flour mixture until the texture is "pebbly." Add the paste and mix well. Shape into a ball and divide into 2 parts.
Lightly flour a clean countertop and rolling pin. Roll 1 portion of the dough at a time. Roll from the center out, lifting the roller at the end of the dough (rather than rolling back and forth). Roll to a 1/8-inch thickness.
Have an 8- or 9-inch pie pan ready. The rolled dough should be at least 2 inches larger than your pie pan. Loosen from the rolling surface, fold in half, and place in the center of the pie pan. Unfold and gently work into the pan, pressing lightly. Trim any excess dough with a knife.

Method for the Filling:
Preheat the oven to 400°F.
In a large bowl, combine the apples, sugar, lemon juice, vanilla extract, and cinnamon. Let stand for approximately 15 minutes, or until juices form. Add the flour and mix.

To Assemble:
Spoon the filling into the bottom crust and dot with margarine.
Roll out the second ball of dough to form a 13-inch round circle. Drape over the filling.
Seal the top and bottom crust edges together and trim any excess dough, leaving a 1/2-inch overhang. Fold under and crimp decoratively with a greased fork.
Brush the pie with the soy milk. Combine the sugar and the cinnamon in a small bowl and sprinkle over the pie.
Transfer to a baking sheet and place in the oven.
Immediately reduce the temperature to 375°F. Bake for approximately 2 hours, or until the crust is golden brown, the apples are tender, and the filling is thick and bubbling. If the edges are browning too quickly, cover with foil.
Serve warm or at room temperature.

And if you’ve read this far, chances are you’d like some more ozone-friendly vegan recipes, so here you go.

I know I was just talking about how cool Simon Cowell is, but he is at it again.

This time he’s got some choice advice for American Idol hopefuls: Be kind to animals. Everyone knows Simon is notoriously harsh when Idol contestants deserve it, but he’s got a big soft spot for animal advocates. Simon opened up on the set of his new PETA ad, which is due out early this summer, saying:

“The people I work with … are all animal lovers. That’s part of the criteria for judging the show, you’ve got to like animals.”

And he applies the same standard to wannabe contestants as well:

“I once had an incident with a guy who auditioned who actually admitted that he likes killing animals. Didn’t go through.”

Considering that Cowell raked in a reported $36 million last year and has been ranked the second-highest-paid person on TV by OK! magazine, it might be wise to heed his suggestion . . .

Have you seen Fast Food Nation yet? If not, the DVD was just released, so you can go rent or buy that jam this weekend.

Just like the book, this film does a great job of getting people thinking about the screwed up process of turning living, breathing animals into a bunch of 99 cent hamburgers. And it’s actually a really good movie too! Not that I’m biased or anything . . .

You can still check out our interviews with the cast and director Richard Linklater here. It's pretty cool to see what they thought of making a movie like this and how it affected them personally.

Anyway, my weekend plans are now complete: Fast Food Nation screening with friends on Friday night, followed by my Willie Nelson party on Saturday. And my friend Joel just got a Wii, so I’m sure I’ll be playing my share of Madden ‘07 this weekend too.

One of the recent perks of being a PETA employee is access to advance chapters of the new book by PETA's globe-trotting VP, Dan Mathews. The book, entitled Committed: A Rabble-Rouser's Memoir, doesn't come out until April, but I've been enjoying the hell out of the little bits and pieces I've been able to coerce Dan into sending me. Here's an excerpt from his account of the inaugural tour of our vegetarian mascot, Chris P. Carrot:

With my feet in his clunky, white shoes, Mr. Carrot stands over seven feet tall. ... He holds a poster that reads “Eat Your Veggies-Not Your Friends” (we thought of going with “Eat Me” but thought again). Completing the ensemble is a pair of fluorescent orange panty hose, which, sadly, wouldn’t stretch to the top of my lanky legs. As PETA's campaigns chief, I don’t ask anybody to do anything I wouldn’t do myself. Since I cooked up this junket, it was my duty to give the flame-colored mascot a test drive in order to work out the kinks for future carrots. My comrade was recently hired campaigner Tracy Reiman, a chipper gal from Georgia, who I was training. On her first business trip, she had to rise at dawn to help her new boss morph into a reject from the land of H.R. Pufnstuf. Tracy also became the carrot’s official spokesperson; the voice I had developed for Chris P. Carrot, a hybrid of John Wayne and Pee Wee Herman, triggered panic-stricken shrieks and projectile tears from second graders, so we decided on the spot that the carrot should be mute. …

Our initial goal was simply to score equal time to tax funded talks in which the U.S. Department of Agriculture beguiles a captive audience of kids about how meat and milk is produced, using carefree materials such as the “Peace & Plenty Farm" coloring book. ... Students are not informed that the animals are kept in such cramped conditions that factory farmers routinely cut off their horns, slice off their beaks, and grind down their teeth to keep them from mutilating each other. When schools refused our offer of a more realistic classroom presentation, we announced that we’d bring the news to kids just off campus, courtesy of PETA’s zany decoy, Chris P. Carrot, whose blazing orange leaflets contained all the grim facts that were omitted from meat trade handouts. The story exploded throughout Cattle Country.

For many years I pushed campaigns which appealed to people’s intellect and compassion. But as cable TV and the Internet helped mold an escapist society hungrier for entertainment than education, serious topics began taking a backseat to scandal and sensation, and we at PETA had to dream up flashier ways to vie for people’s attention. … Although I lament the loss of serious public discourse, I’ve easily adjusted to the new rules because I am, at heart, a very silly person.

As a chubby adolescent too bashful to undress in the locker room, I couldn’t have predicted that I’d spearhead a campaign called “We’d Rather Go Naked than Wear Fur,” be hauled to jail nude on three continents. Or that I’d conduct business at a skinny-dipping party at the Playboy Mansion. Or that I’d impersonate a priest to crash a fashion show in Milan, don a cow costume to storm a cattleman’s convention in Denver, and argue whether Jesus was a vegetarian in the solemn office of the Archbishop of Turin. I’ve picked up the phone to get an angry earful from Madonna when I spoke out against her bullfighting-themed music videos. I’ve also picked up the phone to hear Sir Paul McCartney insist we take the rest of the day off when we successfully pressured McDonald’s to stop buying meat from slaughterhouses that fail USDA inspection.

There's a pretty fun series of interviews with Dan that's been making the rounds, which you can check out here. For what it's worth, our Legal Department wants me to warn you that (in no particular order) you will explode, your eyes will pop out, and your brain will boil in your head if you watch this, since it may have been put up on YouTube without permission. Enjoy!

When I walked by my boss Ingrid’s office this morning and heard “My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys” blaring, I knew something fishy was going on . . .

Well, toss your cowboy hat in the air, crank up “On The Road Again” and holler yee haw! Willie Nelson (Yes, THE Willie Nelson) and his daughter have been trying to close horse slaughterhouses in Texas for many years, and today their efforts and the efforts of everyone who was fighting right alongside them won out! The US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit has ruled that the old law on the Texas books prohibiting the operation of these hideous places is valid—meaning that the two remaining horse slaughterhouse in the state have to close! The only other option the horse butchers have is to try their luck in the Supreme Court, but I really don’t see that happening.

To celebrate, I’m throwing a huge party this weekend, and I just bought “Mama Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to be Cowboys” to start getting pumped up for the big event.

I just love that Willie and his family have worked so hard to help horses. Thank you, guys!

Or should I say “Wer Wird Millionar?” That’s, like, German, because last night on the German version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire, a contestant flew the PETA flag in a big way.

My friend Harald, who sent me the pics of his television set, said the dude is still going and will be on the show again Friday. Hopefully he wins mad euros.

Good luck German PETA dude! If you need a lifeline, feel free to call . . .

If you get that subject line, then you’re old enough to remember Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch. I’m not ashamed to admit it, I used to kick it to Good Vibrations back in the nine one. And like the rest of the civilized world, I’ve followed Mark Wahlberg’s career over the years. Basketball Diaries, Boogie Nights, I Heart Huckabees, The Italian Job (with PETA pal Charlize Theron), and oh, let’s not forget the best picture of ’06, The Departed.

Anyway, as you can see, I’m a fan. So I was pretty bummed when The New York Times reported that my boy was spotted eating foie gras, which is so insanely cruel that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a bill banning it in California. PETA immediately wrote to Wahlberg asking him if he did in fact dine on the dish of fatty liver—that comes from force-fed geese who have pipes rammed down their throats for weeks before being slaughtered and served. His publicist replied right away saying, “Thanks, Mark did not eat fois gras, though it was on the menu as an appetizer,” which put the PETA posse at ease.

Thank God, because I really didn’t want to have to eBay my Entourage DVDs . . . or get rid of my Funky Bunch cassettes. Yes, cassettes. Give me a break, it was a long time ago.

I just read an article about how "scientists" at Shandong University in China have created the first ever remote-controlled pigeon. This is considerably less fun than it sounds, as it turns out that far from actually creating anything, these people have been torturing birds for God knows how many years by inserting electrodes into their brains to try and control their movements. Well, they've apparently succeeded, and now they have no idea what to do with their work. As the London Times puts it, "The report did not specify what purpose the pigeons may perform." Even if you haven't heard of the scientists responsible for this experiment, you should recognize them. Like most vivisectors, they're grown-up versions of those kids who used to pull the legs off spiders or throw stones at cats just to see what would happen. Here's what happened in this case:

Remember Steve-O’s anti-circus video? I thought it was about the coolest thing ever, on account of the fact that the dude can walk down stairs on his hands. (He also said some pretty good stuff against the circus, incidentally.) Anyway, I’ve been hearing all these rumors about a new ad he was going to shoot for us, and I just found out that it was shot this past weekend.

It won’t be released for a few months, so I can’t tell you too much about it, but what I can tell you is that in true Steve-O style, there will be PG, X, and XXX rated versions, and that Tommy Lee will most definitely be proud.

Here’s a pic from the shoot, with everyone’s favorite porn star Ron Jeremy, who just happened to stop by Steve-O’s place during the shoot. The little hottie with them is my pal Michelle, who works in PETA’s LA office. If Michelle’s parents are reading this, I just want you to know that Steve-O gave her a glowing review and reported that she is not only amazingly professional but also, totally smart and awesome and stuff.

And just because its so frickin' cool, here’s the spay/neuter ad Ron did a while back.

For all the good he's done for the environment—which, to be fair, is an awful lot—Al’s leaving out a huge piece of the puzzle by ignoring the fact that the devastation caused by the meat industry is among the worst environmental disasters ever to happen to the world. As we told him in our letter, sent earlier this week:

While the steps that you urge people to take in An Inconvenient Truth are inarguably important, the quickest and most effective way to fight climate change will come through diet change.

An inconvenient truth for him, maybe, but it’s the truth nonetheless. Since he might not have seen the recent U.N. reports on the subject, we pointed out to him that animals raised for food generate more greenhouse gases than all cars and trucks combined, and that (according to a recent University of Chicago study), switching to a vegan diet is more effective in countering global warming than switching from a standard American car to a Prius. We've also offered to cook him some faux "fried chicken" as an introduction to meat-free meals, since, however many documentaries you make, you just can't be a meat-eating environmentalist. I'll let you know if he gets back to us.

If you've never been implicated in a preposterous conspiracy theory, I can highly recommend the experience. It's a roller-coaster ride of emotions from shocked to flattered to downright amused. This is especially true when the person responsible for the conspiracy theory is a high-ranking government official, as we discovered last week when we were tipped off to an alleged claim by U.S. Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao that PETA's Kentucky Fried Cruelty Campaign is not what it seems—that it is (wait for it) a cleverly disguised initiative designed to help labor organizations pass bills that will assist in unionizing workers.

In response to Chao's statement, which she evidently made while speaking at one of Grover Norquist’s “Leave Us Alone” meetings, we've sent her a little letter to clear things up and to ask for her support in the campaign. Just so that this point is crystal clear—PETA's campaign against KFC is single-mindedly focused on that company's treatment of chickens (which, by the way, is appalling). On account of we're an animal rights organization. I.e., an organization that concerns itself with the treatment of animals. Like chickens, for instance. Which is why we have a campaign against a chicken chain. I do hope that makes sense to everyone. Anyway, here's the letter:

Do you really need a letter from PETA and an official ban from your school administration to figure out what's wrong with throwing live chickens onto a basketball court during a game? In the case of the moronic Kansas State fans who did exactly that during a game against rivals KU, the answer, of course, is yes, and despite my tone of outraged disbelief, I can't honestly say I'm all that surprised. Especially given the attitude of KU Coach Bill Self, whose reaction to watching animal abuse take place in front of him was that he was glad he didn’t get hit by a chicken himself:

"My first year here one of them hit me. I'm glad we were on the other side of the court this year. It didn't upset me. That's tradition here that's gone on many years, I guess."

The good news is that, after receiving a letter from PETA, Kansas State has banned this tradition, and the story has received a lot of positive pickup in sports press. But seriously, how embarrassing is it to attend a school where your handbook has to have a whole section devoted to explaining why you shouldn't throw chickens at people?

This is an old video we made a while back to talk about why PETA has occasionally resorted to some more colorful tactics like naked protests to get our point across. It must have been put together in the early days of Internet video, when people had the attention span to get all the way through a 7-minute piece, but I highly recommend sticking around through the first 3 and a half minutes to watch George W. Bush reacting to a PETA manure dump a little while before he was elected President. It's seriously priceless.

Her name is Casey Redd, and she just sent in the latest brilliant addition to our Burberry campaign materials. PETA's Art Department does a fantastic job, but this may very well be my favorite anti-fur ad ever. Here's 10-year-old Casey with the ad she made:

I've been at PETA long enough to know that there are a whole lot of different ways to make a naked ad, and I'm always impressed with the way our Art Department manages to capture the particular style of the celebrity who's posing for the ad without losing sight of the message. Over the years, PETA's Rather Go Naked Than Wear Fur ad series has ranged from risqué to cute to downright scary.

The latest ad in the series, starring hipster legends Mates of State, is no exception. If you've read any reviews of Mates of State albums, you'll know that music writers find it impossible to talk about their work without first mentioning how much the duo love each other. I've been a fan of Mates of State for five or six years now—I love their music, and I've also always been fascinated by how into each other they seem to be. I think their new anti-fur ad for PETA does a great job of getting that across. Here's the new ad, plus a lovely little interview they did for us about their feelings on fur.

Other Viewing Options

P.S. If you haven't heard Mates of State, you should get on that. You can get your Mates of State fix here.

More than 31 major media outlets covered PETA Asia Pacific's pro-vegetarianism photo shoot with Filipina supermodel Alicia Mayer yesterday, and looking at the stunning pictures, I can see why. In case you're wondering, that's PETA Asia Pacific's very own Jason Baker on the right, with the water bottle. I actually haven't spoken to Jason since we were in New Orleans together after Hurricane Katrina more than a year ago, so I'd like to take this opportunity to give him some friendly advice: Get the hell out of the shot, Jason. You're ruining this for me.

Earlier this month, it was announced that Dan Snyder, who owns the greatest football team in the world, has purchased Johnny Rockets, which happens to make the greatest fast-food veggie burger in the world. To celebrate this match made in heaven for vegetarian football fans, PETA has teamed up with Johnny Rockets to give away coupons for free Streamliner veggie burgers throughout the month of March. In the interests of full disclosure here, there are some strings attached, in the sense that you have to buy one first before you get your free one, but it's still a pretty sweet deal—besides, if you can't eat two veggie burgers in a sitting, other vegetarians will think you're a sissy, and nobody wants that. Also, while we're being honest with each other, I totally made up all that stuff about PETA doing this because of the Washington Redskins connection. I just got overexcited and carried away, and I'm sorry. How about I make it up to you with a free veggie burger?

Kathleen, not the sharpest knife in the drawer

If reality ever catches up with Reality TV, we're going to be in great shape as far as animal issues are concerned (though, like, Flava Flav will probably be President, which might cause some problems). Turns out that in Reality TV, when you make naive comments about how the fur industry works, you get voted off the show. On America's Next Top Model last night, one of the challenges was to tackle a controversial political issue, and poor Kathleen ("I like fur, it makes you look hot"), got stuck with fur. We're always looking for snappy sound bites to get our point across about the cruelty of the fur industry, so I couldn't get my pen and notebook out fast enough when Kathleen let drop this little nugget of wisdom:

"Well, I mean, like, I don't think you should take a live animal and kill it, but I mean, like, if an animal is already dead, there's no reason that you shouldn't take its skin and make a coat."

Awww, sweetie, that's not how they make fur. I got done feeling sorry for her by, like, the fifth time she had to ask what it means to be "anti-fur," but it was a treat to hear Twiggy and the others express some real opinions about how screwed up it is to wear fur before voting her ass back to Brooklyn. If only there were some equivalent way of voting fur-flaunting airheads like the Olsen Twins into oblivion …