Mike Johnson - TheBusyBrain.com / CC by 2.0

Q: If "Happiness Is a Dead Animal," then what does that make a malnourished, exhausted, or mistreated animal?

A: A hot dog, according to the meat industry, which recently admitted that it uses dark, firm, and dry (DFD) meat—which "can be the result of prolonged stress in animals prior to slaughter, either because the animals have been underfed, or they are overly fatigued due to transportation and mishandling, or both"—to make "high-quality" products like hot dogs.

Makes perfect sense, right? If an animal is destined for slaughter, why bother treating him or her humanely when you can use his or her underfed and overly fatigued flesh to make hot dogs? I'm thinking that all the antibiotics, dioxins, and hormones that are loaded into meat have finally gotten to those industry officials' heads.

Instead of chowing down on DFD flesh, maybe they should try some DDF (that's "darn delicious faux") meat instead?

Written by Logan Scherer

Ask a million different people what happiness is, and you might get a million different answers. Happiness is … a warm dog. A choice. A girls' night out.

Now animal agriculture proponents are talking about launching an ad campaign boasting, "Happiness is a dead animal." That's right—the communications "whiz" who proposed the slogan has got people arguing that it's high time "to take a positive approach and tell [the public] to go ahead, eat that dead cow, it's OK."

crispyontheoutside / CC

Wow. I mean, wow.

When farm operators and immature steak addicts are done yucking it up about this ad campaign, they'll still have trouble explaining how "it's OK" that downed cows are left to languish for days; that male baby chicks, who are "useless" to the egg industry, are ground up alive; and that farm workers get away with kicking, stomping on, and otherwise abusing animals. Good luck telling that umpteenth heart attack victim's weeping wife and children how "it's OK" that all those bacon cheeseburgers helped make their loved one obese and unhealthy and his ticker to conk out at 50 years young.

We're not concerned that this ad campaign will actually get the green light. Oh, no, no, no. That's not it at all. We've already seen this type of sophomoric pro-meat push on T-shirts, bumper stickers, etc. Yawn. Been there, done that.

At this point, the biggest concern we have about this moronic ad campaign is that they'll decide not to run it. Someone might figure out that farm operators will have an even tougher time convincing anyone—from Jane Doe to legislators—that they care one bit about the animals in their charge if they announce to the world that they believe "Happiness is a dead animal."

Your thoughts?

Written by Karin Bennett

wintergames.ap.org / CC

Some say Olympic snowboarder Greg Bretz "won" an informal McNugget-eating contest by downing 60 blobs of fried chicken bits. But judging by the dazed expression on his face in the second photo, I'm thinking that even he agrees: major biff!

Regardless, we've asked Greg to lay off the McNuggets until McDonald's adopts a less cruel slaughter method. McCruelty in the U.S. and Canada refuses to improve slaughter methods for birds, instead allowing suppliers to break chickens' bones and scald many of them to death—never mind that controlled-atmosphere killing (CAK), approved for use in the U.S., is already used by McDonald's suppliers in Europe.

Perhaps he'll decide to follow Olympic medalist and snowboarder extraordinaire Hannah Teter's lead, who, when asked about life at the Olympics, scored gold in the hearts of caring people around the world when she quipped, "They have McDonald's at the athlete village, so I'll hit that up every morning. … Not!"

Written by Karin Bennett