With the discovery of mad cow disease in a cow from a California dairy farm and in potentially more cows as the U.S. Department of Agriculture searches for her former herdmates, PETA presents the top 10 reasons why cows are so darn mad:

1. How Many Kids and Counting?
   Unless you're Michelle Duggar, you probably have no inclination to crank out one baby after another. Neither do cows used for their milk, but they are kept almost constantly pregnant so that they will continue to produce more milk.
2. Crying Over Stolen Milk
   Mother cows know the meaning of "mother's love" too, and they often wail, sometimes for days, when their babies are taken away so that people can steal the milk that nature intended for their calves.
3. A Scene Out of a Saw Movie
   Farmers use one of several "Jigsaw"-inspired instruments—such as guillotine dehorners, caustic chemicals, searing-hot irons, and saws—to remove cows' horns and calves' sensitive horn tissue.

A barbaric device known as a "keystone" or "guillotine" dehorner

• Castration Without So Much as an Aspirin
  Guys, you wouldn't like it. Male calves don't either.
• Baby Bullies
  Veal is supposedly "tender" flesh, but there is nothing tender about how it is produced. Male calves, who are useless to the dairy industry because they don't produce milk, are often forced to live alone inside frighteningly tiny, dark crates for months, kept virtually immobilized so that their muscles can't develop, and deprived of sufficient iron, leaving their flesh the desired pale color.
• A Bunch of Bull Crap
  Forcing cows to stand ankle-deep in feces on filthy lots is … you know the appropriate word.
• Debbie Downer
  Downed cows are no longer allowed into the food supply, but what happens to them is a serious downer. They are sometimes simply left to die from their illness or injuries or from dehydration.
• There's no D.A.R.E. Program for Cows
  Farmers genetically manipulate and sometimes drug cows in order to force them to produce up to four and a half times as much milk as they naturally would for their calves.
• The Road Trip From Hell
  Anyone who has ever been crammed shoulder to shoulder in a coupe for an extended road trip knows how miserable it is, and that's even with bathroom breaks, food, water, and temperature controls. And while the trip may end at an annoying relative's house, at least it doesn't end at the slaughterhouse.
• This Is the Thanks They Get
  After years of birthin' babies and pumping out thousands of gallons of milk, do cows used for their milk get a comfy retirement? Heck, no! They get sent to slaughter, where, in the words of one slaughterhouse worker, they "die piece by piece." A longtime slaughterhouse worker said he frequently cut the legs off completely conscious cows who blinked and made noises as their bodies were hacked apart.

Don't Get Mad—Get Vegan. Grab a free vegetarian/vegan starter kit and make for fewer mad cows in the world.

Earlier this week, a federal appeals court ruled to uphold a Texas law that requires doctors to describe ultrasounds and play audio of the fetal heartbeat to women seeking abortions.

No matter where you stand on abortion, we hope you'll appreciate the billboard that we'll be erecting in Austin, Texas.

Pig: © iStockphoto.com/Chris Pethick

After all, the meat industry is responsible for immense suffering—from castration without painkillers to animals who are shackled and have their throat slit, sometimes while fully conscious—and billions of deaths, which is about as anti-life as it gets. In contrast, a vegan saves 100 lives a year in addition to reducing his or her risk of dying prematurely from many of our nation's top killers, including heart disease and cancer. Now that's pro-life by any definition!

babychums / CC

While some chefs have a change of heart after they witness the cruelty of meat production, the "Naked Chef," Jamie Oliver isn’t one of them.

According to his spokesperson, Oliver is supposedly "well-known for his championing of better welfare for animals and has had awards from many animal welfare groups."

No wonder animal protectionists everywhere are seeing red after learning that he pinned down and helped castrate a bull for a segment for his upcoming series, Jamie's American Road Trip. Castrating a bull without anesthetics is illegal in the U.K., but apparently Oliver signed on to the old "when in Rome …" theory.

If Jamie Oliver truly cares about animals, he should take a cue from PETA's Ingrid E. Newkirk, who talks the talk and walks the walk. Whether she's convincing officials in Taiwan to stop drowning stray dogs or being carted off to jail for protesting pigeon shoots in Pennsylvania, this true champion of animals never lowers her standards on how animals should be treated, no matter where she is.

Written by Karin Bennett