vegansaurus!
03/15/2013
It’s Paul Shapiro’s weekly Animal News You Can Use! »
Want to read a great AP story about the proponents of anti-whistleblower “ag-gag” bills getting part of their bodies (I’ll let you be the judge) handed to them at a legislative hearing in Nebraska yesterday? Also, the ag-friendly Bakersfield Californian editorial board slammed the supporters of a similar California bill this week, saying how they’re “amazed by the audacity of the cattle industry.”
Good week in statehouses for farm animals, with a New Jersey ag committee passing a bill to ban gestation crates and a Colorado committee doing the same on a bill to ban dairy cow tail-docking. We’ll continue working hard to further advance these bills.
There’s a fascinating story out today about a meat industry front man who admits he created a fake Facebook profile posing as an animal activist in order to criticize HSUS and encourage other animal activists to do the same.
After extensive dialogue with HSUS, Bob Evans is the latest food giant to announce it wants to phase out gestation crates. And the National Pork Board did a survey with promising results about the changing attitudes of pork producers to the gestation crate issue.
Think you’re the only one who finds promise in plant-based products? These billionaires are with you.
Finally, students! If you want “Skinny Bitch” Rory Freedman, VegNews editorial director Elizabeth Castoria, and HSUS’s Kristie Middleton to read your essay, enter HSUS’s Meatless Monday essay contest now!
Video of the week: Justin Timberlake on SNL singing about vegan eating. Words can’t describe how great it is.
Photo of the week: My cats enjoying their catio!
∞ posted at 11:43 by laurahooperb 
03/11/2013
Paul Shapiro’s Animal News You Can Use! »
It’s Paul Shapiro’s Animal News You Can Use! Yay, Paul! Yay, Animals!
I’m psyched to let you know that HSUS worked with L.A.’s school system to implement a Meatless Monday program for all L.A. public schools (K-12). Every Monday, all 650,000 meals they serve are now all-vegetarian. It’s my honor to be on CNN HLN tonight discussing this news with the always-wonderful Jane Velez-Mitchell. You can watch the segment here—please share it!
Colorado’s legislature held a hearing this week on a bill to ban the cruel tail-docking of dairy cows. Despite the practice being opposed by the American Veterinary Medical Association, dairy farmers still shamefully defended the practice at the hearing.
NPR’s “On the Media” had a very worthwhile interview about the meat industry’s efforts to silence whistleblowers by passing laws to ban undercover investigations by HSUS and fellow great animal protection groups. Check it out.
Finally, you may be interested in this op-ed in the Philadelphia Inquirer about the horsemeat scandal.
Video of the week: Birds just wanna have fun…
∞ posted at 11:52 by seriousmeaveness 
03/07/2013
Buy a t-shirt, help animals! They’re dope and available this week only! »
I totally heart these sweatshirts and tees. It’s the intersection of my love for type, clothes, and animals. The concept behind the shirts is interesting too. This site Sevenly.org runs a fundraiser each week where they sell limited edition (I think) shirts and donate $7 of each sale to the chosen charity of the week. Their goal is to raise money for the charity but also, by making things related to the charity that people can buy and wear, they raise awareness for the cause. And this week, the cause is the Humane Society! So for every shirt sold, seven bucks goes to HSUS. More importantly: you get a cool shirt! I kid, I kid. But looks like you only have until Sunday to buy so you best get on that.
∞ posted at 09:00 by youtalkfunny 
03/01/2013
Paul Shapiro’s Animal News You Can Use! »
It’s Paul Shapiro’s Animal News You Can Use! Yay, Paul! Yay, Animals!
The ag industry’s efforts to keep consumers in the dark by suppressing whistleblowers is getting a cold reception by many in the news media.
Indiana’s largest paper (the Indianapolis Star) editorialized this week against the pending state bill intended to criminalize photo-taking a factory farms and slaughter plants, saying it “does a disservice to the public as a whole by blocking the flow of information that may be vital to health and safety.” Indiana’s Herald Times editorialized against it too, calling it a “wrong-headed bill that could step on the First Amendment and make it more difficult to expose wrongdoing.”
The International Business Times had a great piece yesterday on the topic, too. Very important reading.
A new study finds that vegans and vegetarians cause 42% and 28% (respectively) fewer greenhouse gas emissions than non-vegetarians. Also, check out this Seattle Times column on in vitro meat (aka in meatro!), which reports on an Oxford study finding that cultured meat requires “99 percent less land, 96 percent less water, 96 percent less carbon emissions and 45 percent less energy demand,” than raising animals for meat.
Finally, live in Florida? Let’s hang out together tomorrow!
Video of the week: When dove meets cat.
Editorial cartoon of the week: Toles on horsemeat…
∞ posted at 10:14 by youtalkfunny
02/28/2013
Update: HSUS is totally going to win that National Pork Producers Council lawsuit »
Remember in September, when we talked about that lawsuit that HSUS co-filed with a pig farmer against the National Pork Producers Council? It focused on a “creative” use of fees paid by pig farmers to ostensibly pay for the licensing rights to “The Other White Meat,” but which actually disappeared in a back-room deal. HSUS alleged that “NPPC charged pork producers twice: once to make The Other White Meat successful, and again to pay for the value of that success.”
Park Wilde of U.S. Food Policy updated us on the lawsuit this week, and it is not looking good for those sneaky NPPC jerks. Per some newly unredacted documents pertaining to the sale of the slogan—which, remember, has been funded by mandatory fees paid by pig farmers through the pork checkoff program—there was never any other buyer for “The Other White Meat” but the NPCC, and moreover, they knew that no one else would ever want it. It wasn’t worth the $36 million that with interest over 20 years amounts to $60 million paid by the pig farmers (who, again, didn’t agree to this deal, didn’t want this deal, didn’t have any involvement in this deal besides funding it), and now everyone knows it.
It appears that pork checkoff program monies have been used for almost entirely shady purposes. What got HSUS interested in them was their suspected illegal use for lobbying against animal welfare initiatives that HSUS has been pushing for years. This revelation about “The Other White Meat” is only one gotcha, but it’s a big, obvious one. The dirtiest corporate secrets are always in the accounting, right? Tsk tsk, NPPC.
Take a look at the unredacted document at U.S. Food Policy. I can’t wait to see how those 100 percent anti-animal-welfare jerks at NPPC are going to respond. I hope it’s more whining and accusations of bullying!
[Photo by Giang Hồ Thị Hoàng via Flickr]
∞ posted at 09:00 by seriousmeaveness
02/22/2013
Paul Shapiro’s Animal News You Can Use »
It’s Paul Shapiro’s Animal News You Can Use! Yay, Paul! Yay, Animals!
Happy Friday!
Yesterday, New Jersey’s Times of Trenton editorialized in favor of criminalizing the use of gestation crates for pigs, concluding: “Imagine the outcry if dogs or cats were subjected to such treatment.” And check out this great op-ed in yesterday’s New Haven Register in favor of a similar bill in Connecticut.
Want to read about a mind-blowing company that offers immense promise for farm animals? Check out yesterday’s Business Week feature on Hampton Creek Foods, and this cool new videoabout them.
Wondering how British consumers may be changing their diets in the wake of the horse meat scandal? Both Reuters and The Economist have fascinating pieces this week about it.
Finally, if you have a burning desire to know my thoughts on the Animal Ag Alliance’s view of the Super Bowl “God Made a Farmer” ad, here’s my latest piece!
Video of the week: Pig eats cat. Yep.
∞ posted at 13:14 by youtalkfunny
02/15/2013
It’s Paul Shapiro’s Animal News You Can Use! »
It’s Paul Shapiro’s Animal News You Can Use! Yay, Paul! Yay, Animals!
Well, some good news: The Wyoming anti-whistleblower bill (seeking to criminalize investigations at factory farms) has now been tabled in the state senate. The Casper Star-Tribune editorialized just yesterday about how HSUS uncovered a “culture of cruelty” at a Wyoming pig factory and that introducing the bill showed “an egregious lapse in judgment” on the part of the bill’s sponsor, Rep. Sue Wallis.
More good news: HSUS prevailed in a dispute over misleading animal care marketing used by major pork producer Seaboard Foods. Following an FTC complaint filed by HSUS, the agribusiness giant ceased making certain claims about its animal care practices. Alas, while it’s changed its words, it’s still not changed its practices.
And even more good news: Farmers in California were just charged with felony animal cruelty after starving 50,000 chickens.
Video of the week: Did you have a single Valentine’s Day? So did these cats…
∞ posted at 12:02 by youtalkfunny
02/08/2013
It’s Paul Shapiro’s Animal News You Can Use! »
It’s Paul Shapiro’s Animal News You Can Use! Yay, Paul! Yay, Animals!
Hear about the meat industry’s effort to silence whistleblowers on factory farms? I’m honored to be on CNN Headline News tonight with the always-fantastic Jane Velez-Mitchell discussing how badly the industry wants to keep Americans in the dark. Watch the short segment, and please share the link!
Fortunately, the word is still getting out about how abusive practices are the norm, not the exception, in animal agribusiness.
For example, in just the past week: The president of the Vermont Veterinary Medical Association has a good op-ed on why gestation crate confinement of pigs should be ended. Similarly, there’s a compelling op-ed in New Jersey’s largest paper advocating for the state’s pending bill to ban gestation crates, and a great op-ed in another NJ paper supporting the same bill. And there’s a very good blog about all the food retail companies making moves to get gestation crates out of their supply chains.
Video of the week: Did you see the Super Bowl “God Made a Farmer” commercial? If so, you may enjoy this parody!
∞ posted at 16:10 by seriousmeaveness
02/01/2013
It’s Paul Shapiro’s Animal News You Can Use! »
It’s Paul Shapiro’s Animal News You Can Use! Yay, Paul! Yay, Animals!
A lot of new opinion pieces this week!
My friend Bruce Friedrich has a great feature on how much the meat industry has to hide and its desire to pass anti-whistleblower laws. I have a new short piece on chickens, their mental lives, and our treatment of them. The Yale Daily News published a potent op-ed about Connecticut’s new bill to ban gestation crates, and the Syracuse Post-Standard has a great op-ed by a veterinarian on why gestation crates are so terrible for pigs.
Want to protect yourself against the #1 killer in the US? Scientists are finding that a vegetarian diet can reduce heart disease risk by a third.
BTW, did you know that dung beetles use the Milky Way for GPS? Just think how cool you’ll seem at your party this weekend when you bring this up. (And if your friends don’t think that’s cool, you may need some new friends.)
Video of the week: Last week we learned that mice can play fetch. This week, we learn that dogs love to Skype!
∞ posted at 11:42 by youtalkfunny
01/18/2013
Paul Shapiro’s Animal News You Can Use! »
It’s Paul Shapiro’s Animal News You Can Use! Yay, Paul! Yay, Animals!
How many factory farmers does it take to screw in a light bulb? It doesn’t matter since they want to keep us in the dark anyway! How? Read on.
Rather than trying to prevent animal abuse on factory farms and in slaughter plants, the industry is trying to prevent the public from finding out about that abuse in the first place. So far in 2013, numerous states have introduced anti-whistleblower bills (aka ag-gag bills) aimed at criminalizing investigations at factory farms. You can read coverage of the fight this week in New Hampshire and Nebraska over this.
Did you see the news about fitness fanatic and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel touting the benefits of the Engine 2 (vegan) diet?
The Philadelphia Inquirer has an interesting story about the controversy surrounding battery caged laying hens being displayed at Pennsylvania’s Farm Show.
Finally, in the common sense department, new research provides further evidence that crabs and lobsters feel pain..
P.S. Video the week: Just what you always wanted…feline reactions to printers.
∞ posted at 09:35 by youtalkfunny
