If you’ve ever felt like politicians are just a bunch of vegetable puppets, this video will be all the confirmation you need. This idea came into existence a few months ago when a meeting about something else entirely degenerated into a contest to see who could come up with the funniest vegetable-themed name for a presidential candidate. A joint project with our friends at Free Range Studios, Road to the Greenhouse brings Broccoli Obama, Celery Clinton, Dijon McCain, Fruity Giuliani and a whole cast of politicians to life to debate one of the most important issues facing our country today: Is it time we gave peas a chance?

This one has been a major undertaking, but I’m completely in love with the way it turned out. I hope you like it too.

Yup, today is my birthday. Because it’s my birthday today, I can do anything I want (at least, I’m pretty sure that’s the rule), which means that I will be closing out the day by gratuitously posting some videos I’ve made on this here blog. The first one is a music video directed by my good friend Joel Bartlett for a song I wrote about birthdays. If you watch closely, it can also be viewed as an instructional video for how to make a vegan birthday cake (hint: apple sauce instead of eggs).

This second video is a horror movie trailer for a documentary about my recent trip to Canada. The documentary itself has a cooking segment that will be helpful to vegetarians on a camping trip.

And this third video has nothing to do with anything. It features me and my long-suffering parents butchering a Modest Mouse song during my Christmas vacation this year. Hooray! And Happy Birthday, me!

Earlier this morning, PETA sent a letter to Yankees pitcher Roger Clemens (the latest player to face scrutiny in the steroids scandal), urging him to prove that he is committed to being drug-free—by going vegetarian. I’ll leave it for the sports pundits to discuss whether or not Clemens ever deliberately took steroids to help with his pitching, but there's no question that the guy has been ingesting growth-promoting drugs for as long as he’s been a meat-eater. In order to make them grow fatter faster and to ward off the disease in the filthy conditions on today's factory farms, cows, pigs, and chickens are pumped full of growth-promoting hormones, and anyone who eats their flesh will be getting an unhealthy dose of the drugs themselves—no injections from trainers required.

As an aside, I should point out that this is by far the nicest letter that my friend and colleague Dan Shannon—who is an avid Red Sox fan—has ever written to a Yankee. You can check it out here.

Following an undercover investigation which revealed unbelievable cruelty to animals at the Weizmann Institute in Israel, PETA members gathered outside the American Committee for the Weizmann Institute of Science yesterday to express their outrage at experiments in which live cats and monkeys have holes drilled into their skulls and are confined in restraint chairs for up to 8 hours at a time. You can see pictures from the demonstration below, as well as footage of the investigation, which was conducted by the Israeli group Let the Animals Live.

The Weizmann Institute is funded in part by generous donations from people who probably have no idea of the torture that they’re paying for. You can be sure that we’ll be doing everything in our power to make sure these donors know exactly where their money is going.

HBO’s I Am an Animal: The Story of Ingrid Newkirk and PETA was officially released on DVD today, so you should definitely put in an order for it if you haven’t seen it yet. Although it leaves out one kind of important point, the documentary is a fascinating look at the inner workings of PETA—from how the organization’s campaign ideas are born to what goes into an undercover investigation to what Ingrid Newkirk eats for breakfast.

To save you the trouble, the answer to that last question is “oatmeal,” but if you have some more pressing questions for Ingrid after watching this documentary, now’s the time to ask them. Either leave a comment with your (polite) question, or just e-mail it to me, and I’ll compile them all and pass them onto her. I’ll send her the questions over the next few days and post a blog with the answers in a couple of weeks’ time.

Britney in Furs

With that in mind, we've decided to give Britney a bit of a break this year, and take her off the Worst-Dressed-List poll, despite the fact that she had established herself as a strong front-runner in the first two days of voting. Here's what PETA Vice President Dan Mathews had to say about the decision:

So there you have it, but the question is, did we make the right choice in giving Brit a break this year despite her unfortunate penchant for, um, flaunting her fur in public? Please feel free to comment with your thoughts.

PETA got a call this week from representatives of Denny's restaurants confirming that the company has ended its partnership with the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. Denny's smart decision to sever ties with a company that (among other things) beats animals with steel-tipped hooks to make them perform required a little bit of pushing from our end, including protests at Denny's HQ and outside Denny's CEO Nelson Marchioli's speaking engagements, mailings to every Denny's restaurant in the country, personal meetings with restaurant managers, countless calls and emails from our members, a spoof website, and a shareholder resolution calling on the company to end its affiliation with Ringling.

The point I want to really drive home here is that with awesome, creative animal-free circuses like Cirque Du Soleil delighting audiences around the country, there's absolutely no reason why a company looking to do a circus promotion would ever need to get into bed with Ringling Bros. It's outdated, it's unethical, and it's bad for business. And we'll do everything we can to make sure the world knows that.

Denny's joins General Mills, Burger King, Liz Claiborne, MasterCard, Ford Motor Company, and Sears, Roebuck and Co., all of which ended their sponsorships of either Ringling or UniverSoul circuses following negotiations with PETA. Here's what PETA Director Debbie Leahy had to say about the victory:

A huge thank you to everyone who took action on this campaign—calling or e-mailing Denny's, participating in protests, or simply encouraging their friends and family to boycott the company until it ended its association with Ringling. This is a big victory for the animals suffering under the Big Top, and it sends an important message to circuses that use animals that their days are numbered. But they already knew that.

And finally, if you have a moment, please click here to ask AAA to follow Denny’s lead and sever all ties with Ringling Bros.

If you’ve checked the front page of PETA’s site lately, you’ll know that our good friend Pink has stepped up in a big way for horses who are victimized by the carriage horse industry in New York by creating a petition against the cruel business and starring in a billboard to help educate people about the horrors that go on behind the scenes in that industry.

Anyone who works in advertising will know that getting a billboard placed can be a tricky business sometimes—some billboards end up on the side of a dirt road in, like, Pottawattamie, Iowa, and some just never see the light of day at all. So these shots of Pink’s beautiful new ad in Times Square, New York, are nothing short of glorious. Check 'em out (then sign Pink’s petition here).

Australian supermodel Imogen Bailey has helped us with numerous campaigns over the years, speaking out on issues as diverse as the fur industry, rodeos, and elephants in captivity. And she’s just launched a whole new website devoted to educating people about animal rights and giving animal-lovers a forum to discuss the issues. So I wanted to give it a quick shout out: You can check out Imogen Bailey’s ImForAnimals here. But before you go, have a look at this stunning ad she made to let people know about the cruelty behind rodeos. You’re a star, Imogen.