vegansaurus!
05/03/2013
Paul Shapiro’s Animal News You Can Use! »
It’s Paul Shapiro’s Animal News You Can Use! Yay, Paul! Yay, Animals!
First, some good news in our campaign to eradicate gestation crates from pork production: The top eight grocers in Canada (including Walmart Canada) committed to phase out gestation crates. This led one ag reporter to editorialize, “It seems to me like you might as well stick a fork in its butt and turn it over: the gestation stall debate is done.”
Now, some more good news: The Indiana ag-gag bill was killed this week.
I had a new op-ed on CNN.com this week about ag-gag bills that you may want to check out. Also, you may be interested in another new piece of mine (this one on Huffington Post) about the pork industry’s Orwellian name game. And I was glad to do an interview on HuffPost Live this week.
In Tennessee, the ag-gag bill’s sponsor, pork producer state Rep. Andy Holt, created headlines when he sent an email to my coworker comparing HSUS’s cruelty exposés to rape and human trafficking, even calling our work “tape and rape.” There was a lot of attention on this repulsive comparison, but this one
The Tennessee governor is still deciding whether to sign or veto the ag-gag bill. In the meantime, more than 300 Tennessee clergy members sent a letter to him urging a veto.
A woman was arrested in Utah this week for taking photos of a slaughter plant from public property, though the charges were subsequently dropped, leading the Salt Lake Tribune to editorialize that it’s an “ag-gag backfire.”
A new ag-gag bill was introduced in Pennsylvania this week, and the Wayne Independent is the first paper in the state to editorialize against it, asserting that it “goes against everything this country has stood for since its inception.”
Finally, you’ve heard of schools doing Meatless Mondays, but have you heard of them going all-vegetarian? Now you have. Perhaps that’s no surprise, especially considering that a new Consumer Reports study found 90 percent of retail turkey samples contain dangerous bacteria. Whatever the reason may be, meat-free eating is catching on in a major way. As one AP article this week proclaimed: “Vegetarian cooking goes mainstream.”
P.S. Video of the week: Cat loves vacuum
P.P.S. Too fascinating not to share: With smoking declining, U.S. tobacco growers are turning to growing chick peas to supply the increasing demand for hummus. Apparently the invisible hand of the free market is working==and it likes to dip veggies in hummus.
∞ posted at 14:16 by seriousmeaveness 
04/09/2013
The bloodshed of the 2013 Canadian commercial seal hunt has begun »
Animated video from Humane Society International. It’s a cartoon, so it’s not graphic, but I’ll be damned if I’m not tearing up. That song!
It’s begun. The first seal of the 2013 Canadian commercial seal hunt was killed earlier today, according to the Humane Society. We’ve written a lot on the seal hunt in the past, so I don’t really have anything new to say. Sorry.
∞ posted at 13:00 by youtalkfunny 
01/24/2013
If you are in New York, you know it’s painfully cold. When it’s this cold, I just start to think about all the people without homes and how effing cold they must be. It’s terrible. What I forgot about was all the animals like these pigs being transported in these conditions. And this is in Toronto so I can’t even imagine how cold it is there. I could hardly stand walking to the corner store today and these pigs are just out there exposed in their bare skin for who knows how long. Awful.
From Toronto Pig Save, check them out.
∞ posted at 13:10 by youtalkfunny
12/04/2012
Hey Toronto pals! Just look who is coming to your hood! The lovely Leanne and the Vaute Couture crew. You know I would follow Leanne anywhere but I think I have to work Friday. Why are they always making me work when I want to go to Canada?! Word is one raffle prize is a three night stay for up to four people at Farm Sanctuary in NY. UM, pick me please!
∞ posted at 08:37 by youtalkfunny
10/24/2012
YOU GUYS. The Cute Show went to the Montreal Wiener Dog Races! In these three minutes and 13 seconds you will see racing dachshunds! Dachshunds in costume! Dachshunds jumping through hoops! A 14-week-old dachshund puppy named Arthur who was born without eyes!
The Montreal Wiener Dog races were organized to raise awareness and funds for dachshund rescue organizations; this year’s races benefitted Animal Adoption Montreal and Helping Homeless Pets. You can see more videos of the event at the official site.
∞ posted at 09:00 by seriousmeaveness
10/10/2012
International political news: Tuxedo Stan for mayor of Halifax! For the kitties! »
Meet Tuxedo Stan! Although he can’t actually run for mayor of Halifax, Nova Scotia, because of some speciesist Halifax law preventing cats from running for mayor, Stan can raise awareness of the importance of spaying or neutering cats. Also, he and his campaign manager, Hugh Chisolm, are impeccably dressed gentlemen, which we support on principle. I mean, just look at them:
[Can’t see the video? Watch it on Vegansaurus.com!]
You can throw your support to Tuxedo Stan on Facebook and Twitter, and find out all about him on his fine website. According to his bio, Stan and his three brothers were born three weeks after their pregnant mother was rescued from the streets of Nova Scotia. LOOK AT THIS FACE:
Binge on photos of the candidate here and here.
Halifax elections happen on Saturday, Oct. 20. While none of us can vote for Stan, we can vote for his pet cause: Spay Day HRM, which helps “students & low-income families to spay & neuter their cat.” I love political season.
[Photos from Tuxedo Stan’s many internet outlets. Link to story via the wonderful Julie Klausner]
∞ posted at 08:48 by seriousmeaveness
07/27/2012
The news you need: Rescued piglet is adorable. »
Holy crap this piglet is cute! Look at these other pics by photographer Jo-Anne McArthur. They are amazing. I love the ones in the pet carrier, he looks so tiny! This is Sir Edgar Francios. He fell off a truck in Quebec and somebody saved him and now he lives at Snooters Farm Animal Sanctuary in Ontario. Behind him is Pook, a puppymill rescue. Pook! Is that a belly band? OMG POOK! I can’t believe they put up this pic of you, you must be embarrassed. Don’t be, a lot of great individuals can’t control their bladder.
∞ posted at 07:26 by youtalkfunny
07/16/2012
Check out this awesome bridge just for wildlife! It’s in Banff National Park in Canada, because Canada knows how to do shit right. There’s a whole gallery of rad highway overpasses for animals at The World Geography, from which I yoinked this pic. Imagine if we made a lot of these! No more road kill, ever! Animals could hold parties on them, or stand there and strategically poop on cars! I can’t wait, it’s gonna be AWESOME!
∞ posted at 11:29 by reportingrzurer 
05/17/2012
Open discussion: Veganism is a creed, and a creed is a human right! Right? »
Oh, Canada. Camille Labchuck, a Toronto law student, says that “a person’s right to live a vegan lifestyle … is a right that all people should have,” and therefore should be protected by the Ontario Human Rights Code, which is meant to “prevent discrimination and harassment” because of many reasons, including “creed (religion).”
Camille says “creed” is inexactly defined by the legislation, and so including vegan and vegetarian beliefs as protected under the OHRC is possible. I think that’s cool. San Francisco prisoners are supposed to get vegan meals, when requested, but where else are your dietary practices legally protected?
Considering veganism a “religion” makes me feel culty and uncomfortable. But if the legal definition of “creed” matched the dictionary defintion—“a set of beliefs or aims that guide someone’s actions”—I would be all right with that. Because yes, being vegan affects basically everything I do, and I would like my fellow vegans’ right to follow their beliefs protected under law. Even if it is only in one Canadian province (and Britain!). Today Canada, tomorrow the U.N. Human Rights Council!
What do you think? Should the rights of vegans to observe a vegan lifestyle be considered analogous to religious and political groups’ rights to exist? Of course, right?
Unrelatedly, did you know that Canada has a Vegan Danish Bakery?! Ô je t’adore, Canada!
[photo by cacaye via Flickr]
∞ posted at 08:21 by seriousmeaveness
03/29/2012
Here’s a handy infographic about Canada’s commercial seal slaughter from the Humane Society. Check out the whole thing.
Stupid seal slaughter. Makes me so sick! But damn it, I love an infographic. I wish we could go back to middle school and just learn everything through infographics. OR osmosis. Just kidding, I’d rather die than be thirteen again. Hang in there, tweens! It gets slightly kind of better.
∞ posted at 13:55 by youtalkfunny
