Archele Hundley is the latest in a long list of brave ex-Ringling Bros. employees to come to PETA with her story about what the folks at the circus get up to when they think no one’s watching. The PSA that she just recorded for us to help expose the circus’s animal abuse is a must-see for any parents who still take their kids to the circus, so please do pass it on if you know any grown-ups with children.

The wonderful Pamela Anderson, who was once paid to promote M&M's, has come out against Mars Candy for funding inhumane experiments on animals in violation of its own written policy. Pam faxed a letter to Mars President Paul S. Michaels this week expressing her support for PETA’s Mars Campaign, and letting him know that she will be encouraging her fans to boycott the candy this Holiday season. "When my friends at PETA showed me evidence that Mars continues to fund cruel and pointless animal tests,” she writes, “I was shocked—and it takes a lot to shock me."

You can read the full letter here.

My own extended family and circle of friends are a ravening bunch of carnivorous barbarians who would gladly eat their own dogs and cats if they ran out of ground beef one day. But my colleagues have informed me that, thankfully, not all families are like this, and what with Christmas round the corner and all, they’ve suggested that I write an entry focusing on some of the fun, funny, and occasionally kind of weird gift ideas for animal lovers that we’re currently featuring in the PETA Catalog. With that in mind, here’s a top 10 for you. Because although there may be fewer animal lovers in the world than we would like, everybody loves a top 10 list. And that includes you. So read and enjoy. And Merry Christmas.

1. The Cat Vomit Warning Sign. If you like cats, vomit, and signs, you’re not going to do much better than this. It’s also a great way of letting guests know to tread carefully if little Mittens is prone to expressing herself via hairballs.

2. My Dog/Cat is a Rescue T-Shirt. Tell the world that you rescued your furry friend from a shelter! Bragging is OK if it’s also a public service.

3. Eat No Animal T-Shirt. Paul McCartney himself wears this very T-shirt in his latest video. And if it’s good enough for Sir Paul, it’s good enough for your family. (Recommended for vegetarians—otherwise it’s just confusing).

4. Let’s Have a Dog Party. The latest book by PETA President Ingrid Newkirk is actually a hell of a lot more practical than it sounds. Full of fun tips that will help you make your canine companion the happiest pup on the block, it’s a perfect gift for those people who never stop talking about their dog. You know who you are, Allie.

5. Dogfighters are Cowardly Scum T-Shirt. Put animal abusers in their place and make a fashion statement at the same time. Just by wearing this T-shirt, you’ll be accomplishing two of the most important things you’ll ever do.

6. Be Scratch Happy, Don’t Declaw BackScratcher. Is your current backscratcher missing a humorous, cat-friendly message? Never fear, we have the answer. This is an ideal present for cat-lovers with itchy backs.

7.This KFCCruelty.com Bobblehead Ink Pen is perfect for composing that angry letter to KFC about their refusal to make even minimal changes to alleviate the suffering of the hundreds of millions of chickens killed for their restaurants each year. To be fair, it’s also good for writing, like, other stuff.

8. 'PETA Saves' Piggy Bank. Ah, so many levels of meaning. PETA “saves,” because PETA saves pigs, but you’re also “saving” money by using the piggy bank! OK, maybe it’s not quite so fun when you explain it. But it really is pretty darn cute.

9. Humane Smart Mousetrap. Catch and release, baby. It’s good for the mice, and it’s good for your soul.

10. And finally, the Gift Sets for the Animal People. In all honesty, this is more of a gift to us than it is to the person in question—but it’s a fun way of giving a donation in someone’s name. Pick the perfect donation package for your animal-loving family member, or, if you have a hunter in the family, why not give them the Peace for Animals Gift just to annoy them?

Oh, and for what it’s worth, everyone in my family’s getting a copy of this PETA book of New Yorker cartoons. That way I can eat my tofurkey in peace on Christmas day while they all laugh pompously and pretend they understand the esoteric jokes.

To be honest, I’m having trouble coming up with a decent intro to this video. It’s a behind the scenes look at the companion animal overpopulation crisis, from the perspective of a woman who deals with it every day, up close and personal. It really made me think about what an absolute joke the whole idea of “responsible” breeding is, when millions of animals are killed annually for one simple reason: there just aren’t enough good homes for them.

Anyway, check it out and let me know what you think.

Hey, I didn’t write the title for this post, so don’t take it out on me. It’s actually a reference to a feature that appeared in everyone’s favorite quarterly publication, Animal Times, this fall. And I thought it was pretty damn cute.

For most of the regular commenters, this quiz isn’t mandatory—feel free to just skim through and look for the funny parts. But Halo Snipe, the bad Steve, Dr. C, and Mars: I’m expecting you all to post your scores. I’m guessing you four aren’t PETA members already, but if you’ve just been waiting for that extra incentive, Animal Times comes free when you donate $16 or more.

Anyway here it is. No cheating (answers after the jump).

Well, we took a week off last week ’cuz, to be frank, researching these people can really ruin my Fridays sometimes—and if there was ever a man who could suck all the fun out of your weekend, it’s our latest winner (by a margin of 15-1!), Hagai Bergman, who enjoys romantic movies, long walks on the beach, and drilling holes into monkeys’ brains while they scream for mercy.

While Hagai shuffles into his rightful place as this week’s Vilest Vivisector, it’s time to turn our attention to the new blood. This week, we’ve got two researchers for you from the Yerkes Center at Emory University who are studying the psychology of despair the only way they know how … by inflicting it! So here it is—a PETA Files exclusive sneak peek into the very darkest reaches of two twisted human souls … it’s time to cast your vote for the next Vivisector of the Week!

Stuart Zola, Emory University. Emory/Creative Commons For the past 3 years, Stuart Zola, who is the director of Emory’s Yerkes Primate Research Center, has been refining his theories about what makes baby monkeys suffer the most. He’s tried slicing into their brains, and he’s tried tying them to restraint chairs for hours on end. He’s even spent some of the $2.2 million in taxpayer money he’s received for these experiments to turn the young primates into drug addicts in the hopes of finding out whether drug-addiction has adverse effects on the memory (yes, Stuart, it does). But Zola’s curiosity about early-life trauma in monkeys knows no bounds! If you’d like to see this relentless dedication to sadism given its due, be sure to cast your vote for Stuart Zola now!

Maria Sanchez, Emory University. Emory/Creative Commons Maria del Mar Sanchez has the dubious honor of being our first female candidate for Vivisector of the Week, and—doubtless mindful of the weighty implications that this carries for her gender—she’s gone out of her way to show that natural compassion and maternal instincts mean absolutely nothing to her. A mother herself, Sanchez conducts experiments in which infant primates are taken from their mothers again and again, giving rise to extreme depression in the monkeys. Baby monkeys taken from their mothers are so desperate that they will cry out more than 200 times in 30 minutes. To elect our very first female Vivisector of the Week, cast your vote for Maria Sanchez!

Will Mrs. Sanchez’s diabolical role as a parent who has devoted her life to wrenching infants from their mothers be enough to edge out the sadistic brain butcher Stuart Zola? Find out next week* when we crown the very latest Vivisector of the Week!

*The PETA Files cannot guarantee that they will remember to do this next week.

Well to be fair, this is more of a Part 1-revisited, so if you totally understood the story the first time, feel free to browse through the archives (maybe cast your vote for this week's Vivisector of the Week), but if you had some questions about the whole thing, here's a quick guide to PETA's reasoning behind providing Michael Vick with information about why animals deserve respect, and some key facts about how it all went down:

1. PETA believes that almost anyone can come to understand that animals are capable of suffering and deserve respect, if given a chance. If we didn't, we'd have a pretty hard time getting up in the morning. Only time will tell whether Michael Vick ends up being one of those people.
2. We made it clear both to Michael Vick and the judge that, given the crimes Vick has admitted to, he needs to serve hard time and be banned from any contact with animals. We're glad he paid attention when we gave him information about treating animals with kindness, but the guy still needs to go to prison.
3. This is not a race issue. We don't care if he's orange.
4. This is not a race issue. White people who fight dogs need to fry.
5. This is not a race issue. Are you deaf, or just desperate?
6. We need to give offenders a chance to open their hearts, eyes, and minds to the suffering they've caused. We would not be doing our jobs properly if we spent all day preaching to the choir.
7. Vick is working with children. This makes it all the more important that we arm him with facts about respect for animals and how to treat them.
8. After he took the course, Michael Vick pointed out that NFL players have a bad record of violence and said that he wished he'd taken it years ago. So do we. That's why we're pushing the NFL to include a similar course in empathy for animals for all of its new players.

I hope that clears a few things up. Feel free to let me know if you have any questions at all.

As you may have heard by now, Michael Vick and his three co-defendants were indicted today by a grand jury, and charged with one count of beating or killing a dog in addition to one count of engaging in and promoting dogfighting. The next step is for the prosecuting attorney, Gerald Poindexter, to actually charge these guys. This is PETA’s official statement on the new indictment:

Please click here to take action on this issue by urging the NFL to add cruelty to animals to its conduct policy.

I know, I know. I just used an almost identical subject line last week in the “Shoplifting Seagull” entry, but I couldn’t resist. Just like I couldn’t resist sharing this amazing story about a pigeon who befriended an injured baby monkey at an animal sanctuary in China. Check it out here.

umusic/Creative Commons

With that in mind, PETA VP Dan Mathews wrote the following note to Mr. Zombie:

Not only was the cat used in this scene fake (of course), but guess what? Rob Zombie is an ethical vegetarian, and has been since 1982, when he saw slaughterhouse footage in high school. Turns out that some zombies don't eat flesh at all. Who knew?