When graffiti king Banksy's "coyote" took on Colonel Sanders, we interpreted the work to be pro-chicken. But there's no question that artist Wayne Coyne, lead singer for The Flaming Lips, is speaking out against cruelty to birds with his new work. He assured fans that the blood used in the creation of a new poster was his own, stating, "We thought it would be silly to use some chicken blood or something like that. They don't need to sacrifice their vital fluids any more than I need to, so I thought, 'Well, let's just do it. We'll be the experiment.'"

The Flaming Lips have previously signed PETA's petition calling on KFC to eliminate some of the worst abuses endured by birds killed for its buckets. We like it when people speak up for chickens. Do you?

Written by Karin Bennett

Whatever PETA does in the U.S., our counterparts in Germany always feel like they have to do it better. A month or so ago, we were patting ourselves on the backs after a protest where we burned Colonel Sanders in effigy was picked up by national media. Well, in Dusseldorf today, PETA Deutschland—who apparently felt that the demonstration just wasn't exciting enough for the discriminating German audience—decided they needed to spice it up by bringing along a firebreather in a chicken suit. If by some odd chance you get Germany's main television station, RTL TV, you should be glued to your set tonight for the exclusive footage. The whole thing is kind of incredible.

In the course of negotiations with a company like KFC—which refuses to make even minimal improvements in the lives of the billions of chickens it uses for profit—there is a time for subtlety and there’s a time for burning their corporate logo in effigy. This past week turned out to be of the latter sort. Check out the pic below from our awesome protest in Washington:

In related Colonel Sanders effigy news, I just discovered that PETA isn’t the only organization that has a longstanding KFC boycott. According to those omniscient folks over at Wikipedia, a Japanese baseball team called the Hanshin Tigers has failed to win a championship in more than 18 years due to what fans call “The Curse of the Colonel.” Apparently their run of bad luck started when a crowd of Tigers fans threw a Colonel Sanders statue into the river as part of a celebration.

So in case you’ve been looking for some more reasons to join PETA’s KFC boycott—in addition to the fact that KFC kills millions of chickens a year by boiling them to death—you can do it so that the much-maligned Hanshin Tigers can finally win the championship that has been stolen from them by a company that has nothing but contempt for animals, consumers, and Japanese baseball.