Yesterday, the U.K.'s Advertising Standards Authority ruled against a PETA U.K. ad that the watch group feels the public is too dense to understand. The decision was sparked by a sole complainant who thought that people might be confused by this billboard:

Personally, I think it's pretty straightforward, but moving on: How about this one, which PETA U.K. unveiled yesterday?

Hans-Gerhard Wagner of the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization has acknowledged that factory farms create an "opportunity for emerging disease." The meat, egg, and dairy industries keep diseased animals in crowded, filthy conditions and feed them a steady diet of drugs to keep them alive. It shouldn't come as a shock that factory farms provide the ideal conditions for drug-resistant "superbugs" to develop.

Forgo the surgical masks, folks. The safest, easiest way to prevent animal-borne disease epidemics is to go vegan.

Posted by Karin Bennett

made-in-china / CC

From the category of "Well, duh" comes this story out of Copenhagen: A Danish journalist was found guilty this week of deliberately killing 12 guppies and, logically, of violating animal protection laws.

In an effort to demonstrate the toxicity level of a shampoo, TV host Lisbeth Koelster poured shampoo into an aquarium and, lo and behold, almost all the guppies were poisoned to death.

I'd say that's about as far from protection as you can get.

Of course, the journalist's lawyer argued that the charges were erroneous—I guess sea kittens don't warrant protection? "Fish are killed by suffocation in industrial fisheries and we throw live lobsters into boiling water," he said, "but we don't press charges against fishermen or restaurant owners."

Well! If that doesn't just give us ideas ….

Posted by Amanda Schinke