Here's something you won't hear too often: Austrian nuns opened a health spa to raise money for their convent after their chicken farm "fell flat." The nuns even use high-pressure hoses to spray chilled water at guests to stimulate their skin. The whole thing might not sound very conventional (there's no buff masseuse in a muscle shirt), but, hey, it's better than a chicken-breeding business. You go, sisters!

Perhaps they'll inspire the monks at Our Lady of Calvary Abbey, a monastery in Canada, to shut down their despicable factory farm and open a Jazzercise club—or at least switch to some other non-animal venture, such as making preserves, brewing beer, or growing vegetables. The monks at Mepkin Abbey made the compassionate decision to shut down their egg-laying operation and start growing oyster mushrooms following a PETA investigation.

So before you post a comment about the church's massage technique (you know you want to), please take a moment to urge the monks at Our Lady of Calvary to follow the example of their brothers at Mepkin and their sisters at Marienkron and convert to a humane alternative.

Thanks to David Best for sending this story our way.

Written by Heather Moore

Many Canadians are against their country's annual seal slaughter—the biggest massacre of marine mammals in the world—but the Canadian government has yet to put a stop to it. Not only is the government supporting the barbaric acts of bludgeoning and shooting baby seals, it is also spending taxpayer dollars to do so. Canadians, it's your home and your hard-earned money, and we need you to speak up for seals now.

The Parliament of Canada needs to hear from Canadians who don't want this massacre to go on. Let's keep the ice floes (and Canada's hands) blood-free, shall we? We've created a call log that you can use to ask your members of Parliament to support Senator Mac Harb's bill, which would end the barbaric seal slaughter.

Download the log here and get a "No Fur" pin if you get 10 of your friends, family members, or coworkers to make a brief call. When you've filled out a call log sheet, e-mail a scanned copy to ActionTeam@PETA.org or send it to the address below. Make sure to include your full name, address, and phone number along with the completed call log:

Action Team501 Front St.
Norfolk, VA 23510
USA

It's easy for the Canadian Parliament to ignore this bloodshed because it doesn't see its country's ice stained red. This is your chance to show Parliament the reality behind the massacre.

Just about everyone is badmouthing KFC's vile new Double Down sandwich. (Gee, wonder why?) Guess which celebrity just called it the "double bypass" and said, "I just don't see a need for it, it's like handing people a gun"?

1. Andy Dick
2. Rachael Ray
3. Lil Wayne
4. Queen Latifah

Check out the CNN clip for the answer.

Written by Heather Moore

Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack today announced new regulations that are meant to curb the number of meat-eaters who are rushed to hospitals after being sickened by life-threatening foodborne illnesses. It's believed that the "improvements" will keep 39,000 Americans from being infected with campylobacter and 26,000 from being sickened by salmonella-tainted chicken and turkey flesh—a small reduction from the 3 to 4 million Americans who contract these diseases every year.

In other words, the "improvements" promise little more than a drop in a KFC bucket.

What will a meat-eater's chances of getting sick from salmonella or campylobacter be under the new regulations? Considering that the new standards allow for 7.5 percent of chicken corpses at a plant to test positive for salmonella—and that of those corpses, 10 percent can be "highly contaminated" and 46 percent can have "low levels" of contamination—we'd say still pretty good, er, bad.

In a recent analysis, Consumer Reports found that among "fresh" whole chickens bought in 22 states, two-thirds harbored salmonella and/or campylobacter.

Folks, these new "safeguards" won't do squawk squat to keep consumers safe from salmonella and campylobacter. The simple fact is that eating chickens and turkeys will sicken just about every meat-eater sooner or later. Those who care about animal welfare become sickened when they learn about the abuse of billions of birds on factory farms and in slaughterhouses. Those who don't know about this abuse will likely find themselves locked in the loo at some point, sickened by salmonella and/or campylobacter—or worse, they'll find themselves in emergency rooms thanks to heart attacks, strokes, or other conditions that are linked to meat consumption.

All the more reason to urge everyone you know to say, "Bye bye, birdies! Hello, Gardein!"

Written by Karin Bennett

The work of British guerrilla artist Banksy can't be ignored. Indeed, Time just selected him as one of the year's most influential people.

Now the painting provocateur has cheekily twitted one of PETA's frequent targets: Colonel Sanders, the very face of Kentucky Fried Cruelty.

Image from http://www.banksy.co.uk/.

Sure, art is subjective, but in light of Banksy's earlier works, which seem to side with the animals in circuses and question why we call some animals "pets" and others "food," I'm inclined to believe that he's standing with the chickens who are raised in crowded, filthy conditions to supply KFC's restaurants—and who are sometimes even scalded to death. Or maybe he's just as appalled as we are by KFC's new Double Down.

Either way, I don't know much about art, but I know what I like—and I suspect that KFC doesn't like Banksy's work at all. And that's reason enough to cheer.

Written by Jeff Mackey

Speaking of interruptions, check out this footage from last night, when a PETA member took the podium during a speech by McDonald's bigwig Mary Dillon at a Marquette University alumni event to give attendees an earful about the company's cruelty to chickens:

The audience was packed with CEOs and top executives from lots of big corporations. PETA's newest campaign strategy includes attending McDonald's executives' speaking engagements and holding them accountable in front of their colleagues and competitors for remaining in the Dark Ages when it comes to animal welfare. Even though a less cruel method of chicken slaughter is already in use in Europe and has been approved by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, McDonald's still allows its suppliers to break chickens' wings and legs, cut their throats while they are conscious, and scald them to death in defeathering tanks using the outdated method.

All McDonald's needs to do to stop animal defenders from being a pain in its neck is to get its suppliers to quit cutting chickens' throats open and insist that they adopt controlled-atmosphere killing.

Written by Lindsay Pollard-Post

We can only hope so—and we mean that in the nicest possible way!

When PETA learned that Springfield, Oregon, comedian Aaron Jamison, who has terminal cancer, is selling ad space on his urns to offset his bills, we were dying to help. Aaron must be a great guy because he took us up on our offer to place this anti-KFC ad on one of the urns:

You don't have to kick the bucket to stick up for abused chickens—just boycott KFC's greasy grub and tell everyone at work and in your neighborhood to do the same. Now's a perfect time, too, because KFC is hoping to make a killing over the next month by selling pink buckets of chicken as a really sick sales gimmick. KFC can't pretend not to see the irony in trying to associate itself with breast cancer research. Let's just say that fried and fatty foods + obesity = increased cancer risk.

And when we found out that dog breeding is one of Aaron's pet peeves, we bought this ad too:

How about you? Want to go out in style?

Written by Paula Moore

Just in time for Friday afternoon's behind-the-boss's-back video-game break, the creator of our popular New Super Chick Sisters is taking us on a walk through the game, showing us where the secret tofu blocks are stashed and demonstrating the proper technique for butt-stomping doomburgers on the way to save Princess Pamela Anderson from the clutches of evil Ronald McDonald. (Baffled? We promise not to tell anyone that you're a bigger fan of the Bee Gees than of video games if you promise to show this to a daughter, son, niece, nephew, or grandchild. It'll score you some points; you'll see.)

She had me at "hairball-coughing sea kitten suit"!

If you haven't played this addictive game, check it out. After you rescue Princess Pam, why not take down the chicken-abusing clown the good old-fashioned way—by dropping McDonald's a line?

Written by Lindsay Pollard-Post

Honorary PETA director Bea Arthur had no intention of letting a little thing like, say, death stop her from speaking out against cruelty to animals. The Golden Girl is taking on the Golden Arches' chicken abuse in a full-page PETA ad in Thursday's Chicago Tribune—paid for by Bea herself through a gift in her will.

PETA members dressed in black will also hold a spirited protest outside a downtown Chicago McDonald's to mark the ad's debut and the one-year anniversary of beautiful Bea's passing.

Will Bea's plea from beyond the grave inspire McDonald's to lessen the hellish suffering of the chickens who are killed for its restaurants? Please join Bea and PETA by taking action and urging McDonald's to demand that its suppliers switch to a less cruel slaughter method called controlled-atmosphere killing. If Bea's eternal activism has inspired you, please also consider joining PETA's Augustus Club (which Bea helped launch) to ensure that your efforts to help animals live on long after you've gone!

Written by Lindsay Pollard-Post

The saturated fat and cholesterol in KFC's Double Down begins clogging arteries and potentially decreasing life expectancies nationwide in just a few days. The sandwich "vilest food product created by man," consists of bacon and cheese sandwiched between two fried chicken breasts, and according to KFC, is only 540 calories—and 32 g of fat, and 1,380 mg of sodium.

With two chicken breasts, cheese, and bacon, the Double Down means quadruple the Kentucky Fried Cruelty for animals, and it could mean quadruple bypasses for consumers since the consumption of animal fats has been linked to heart disease. So as KFC debuts its artery plug on a sans bun, PETA will begin touring the country with our anti-KFC hearse, which will make its first stop in KFC's hometown, Louisville, Kentucky.

Keep your eyes peeled, the hearse could be coming to a Kentucky Fried Cruelty near you!

Written by Logan Scherer