In case you missed it, the interwebs have been awash with speculation today about this picture, from the White House website, which “appears” to show a nude woman reflected in Vice President Dick C’s sunglasses while he was fishing. The White House is insisting that the reflection is just that of an arm holding a fishing rod, but, using a special enhancement technique, we've been able to pull up the image on the glasses. Of course, we had the advantage, in that we knew exactly what he was looking at — one of PETA’s protestors purposely distracting the Veep to get him to stop fishing and start grinning. Call me crazy, but I’m almost certain that’s the star of PETA’s 2008 State of the Union Undress! Glad to know she's reaching people in high places with her message that fish may not be as cuddly as deer, but they need to be let off the hook. Yes, Dick: Fishing hurts.

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A little international flavor for you this afternoon: Earlier today outside the British embassy in Vienna, three PETA Germany members wearing little more than Union Jack Underpants and faux fur hats let the royals know exactly how they feel about the British Ministry of Defense's refusal to stop using bear fur for the Queen's Guards' ceremonial caps. Angry and naked, is how they feel. In case that wasn't clear.

Assuming you're of legal age and your boss isn't watching, you can check out the NSFW pic here.

People are traditionally a bit more relaxed about nudity (and, indeed, most things) in Europe, but a fully naked, guerrilla-style news conference in the middle of the town square will make even those too-cool-for-school Europeans sit up and pay attention. Seriously—even the French were surprised. These stunning (and, be warned, NSFW) naked news conferences have been an amazing way for PETA Europe and our other international affiliates to get the word out about the barbaric cruelty inherent in the archaic “Running of the Bulls”. Check it out:

In England, they do Mother’s Day differently (i.e., they actually celebrate it on the right date). And with Mothering Sunday coming up across the pond, PETA Europe have put together an incredibly striking demonstration to draw attention to the horrible suffering of mother pigs in gestation crates. My friend Alexia has the full story over on her blog Fish & Chimps, but here’s a quick look at the amazing demonstration that’s been getting tons of coverage for pigs abused on factory farms.

Australian singer, actress, and long-time vegetarian Sophie Monk is as compassionate as she is beautiful, which is why she jumped at the chance to star in this beautiful ad promoting vegetarianism.

Sophie is super hot right now, and not just because she’s lying on a bed of chili peppers. She was in Date Movie and Click last year, she’s set to star in Scary Movie 5, and she absolutely killed it in a guest spot on Entourage last season. And I’d be remiss not to mention her amazing cover of the classic Salt ‘n’ Pepa track “Push It.” The video for “Push It,” directed by Sophie’s fiancé, Good Charlotte guitarist and fellow animal rights supporter Benji Madden, became an online hit almost immediately.

Check out what Sophie has to say about being vegetarian, animal testing, and other animal issues in this exclusive behind-the-scenes video from the photo shoot:

These brave PETA members took a completely new tack with the “Rather Go Naked Than Wear Fur” rallying cry yesterday, demonstrating for passersby that they would rather be naked, dead, and in downtown Reno than wear fur. I think it’s fair to say that there are simply no circumstances under which these young ladies would consider wearing fur. Which is the way it should be. Check out the pic below, and some coverage in The Reno Gazette here.

Brattleboro, Vermont, is well-known for its “unique” public nudity laws, so a couple of brave PETA members went down there last week to test them out with a “Bare Skin, Don’t Wear Skin” demonstration. Check out the great pics below, and, as soon as you (a) turn 18 and (b) get home from work, click here to check out the demonstration from, um, behind.

Sure, Steve Carell is funny and everything, but being British and all, I’ve always held a special place in my heart for the cast of the original version of The Office. I absolutely love it. So imagine my delight when I found out that PETA UK just released an ad with Lucy Davis, who starred in Britain’s The Office and stateside, Studio 60. Now imagine my delight to find out that it was a naked ad urging the Ministry of Defense to stop using bear skins for the traditional caps the Queen’s Guards wear. Double wow.

Here’s what Davis had to say about it, “So much money is spent, and so much cruelty is spent, on what at the end of the day is a hat—and that is it. Not only was I horrified to find that it was one bear to make one hat, but also it's not really just one bear—in a way it can be one whole family. … That whole family dies, and again, it's just for a hat." Well put, indeed.

You can join Lucy in pressuring the Ministry of Defense to switch to cruelty-free headgear by clicking here. And be sure to catch her in the much anticipated David Duchovny series Californication on Showtime.

The Burberry campaigners at both PETA and PETA Europe have been extra busy lately. It seems like every day I have photos of some new demonstrations they’re rocking in my inbox.

Check out this shot from a “Burberry: When Plaid Goes Bad” demonstration on the boardwalk in Atlantic City. And here’s a great news story from the demo as well.

Not to be outdone, PETA Europe activists dressed up as bunnies and took to the streets for this beautiful demonstration at Burberry’s annual meeting in London yesterday.

Props to everyone involved in both demos. Great job. And fyi, if you’re interested in being contacted when there are events like these taking place near you, you can sign up for PETA’s activist network here.

The Running of the Nudes took place today in Pamplona, and, well, wow. This is the sixth year that PETA Europe has been organizing this fun alternative to Pamplona’s archaic bull run, and the thing just keeps getting bigger and bigger. I’ll be posting more news and pictures from the event as they come in, but here are the first shots from today’s naked “Human Race.”

You know what I’m saying? Seriously, it just makes me happy to be alive. Her name is Annamarie, the place is Fresno, and there was evidently a bit of a traffic jam for a while. As Annamarie puts it, "I’ll gladly bare some of my skin if it will help save animals’ skins. With all the luxurious alternatives available, there’s absolutely no excuse to wear animal skins."

And finally, in the interest of fairness, here are some boys too.

What do you do when you have more naked activists than life-size, cellophane-wrapped meat trays? Double up. At least that was how they handled it at Princeton University yesterday, to striking effect. The demonstration, which was a joint protest organized by PETA and the Princeton Animal Welfare Society to draw attention to the suffering of animals used by the meat industry, got two different front page stories in the Daily Princetonian, including this one, about a follow-up presentation given by Dan Mathews to explain in a bit more detail why PETA does these kinds of demonstration instead of just putting on a suit and tie and pointing out the various inadequacies in the Humane Methods of Livestock Slaughter Act. (The short answer, by the way, is that we do both, but people don't always show up for the latter presentation.) Anyway, here are some pics:

Air Force Drill Sergeant Michelle Manhart made big headlines a little while back when the Air Force got all in a tizzy after finding out she had posed for a spread in Playboy magazine. As you're probably aware, PETA doesn't have quite the same take on public nudity as the Air Force does, especially when it's being used to get people to pay attention to an important issue. Which is why we were thrilled when Michelle agreed to become the latest star of our "I'd Rather Go Naked Than Wear Fur" series. Check out her great interview and the beautiful ad below—it'll make you proud to be an American (unless, like me, you're not an American, in which case you can just focus on the pretty lady in the picture).

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.

Attendees of the invitation-only Christian Lacroix show at Paris Fashion week this afternoon discovered that "I'd Rather Go Naked Than Wear Fur" is a whole lot more than just a catchy slogan when a PETA Europe supporter removed all her clothes, evaded security, and rushed onto the catwalk with an anti-fur banner. Here’s what astonished onlookers saw at the event:

Another protester, this time at the Valentino show, didn't quite make it onto the catwalk. You can click here to check out the NSFW picture of how that went, but before you do (I swear to you I’m not kidding about this), our legal department is making me ask you to check very carefully to make sure both that you’re 18 years old and that publishing or viewing nude photos is legal where you live. If neither of those things is true, don’t come crying to me when the police knock down your door and drag you away from your computer.

By way of a bit of editorial, this kind of tactic always seems to raise a lot of healthy debate, and I've heard good points made on both sides of the issue. Nonetheless, I have yet to hear a good argument made defending the actions of designers like Lacroix and Valentino, who directly fund people who skin, bludgeon, strangle, and electrocute animals for a living. For more information on that, click here. I don't know if I'd ever be able to do what these two activists did in Paris today, but I'm certain that I'd rather go naked than wear fur. If it ever does come to that point, though, I really hope that I’ll be allowed to do it in the comfort of my own home.