The 20^th-anniversary edition of PETA President Ingrid E. Newkirk's book Free the Animals has been released—get yours from the PETA Catalog—and the brilliant host of HBO's Real Time (and PETA honorary board member) Bill Maher has given it a rave review on the Huffington Post.

Bill gives an overview of some of the amazing victories PETA has won for animals in the two decades since Free the Animals was first published—and some of the things that still haven't changed enough—while touting it as "the riveting, real-life story of the people who put on disguises, use fake IDs or jimmy their way into laboratories in order to carry out the daring rescues of animals used in experiments and of the insiders, the whistleblowers, who risk their jobs to help them."

If you don't believe Bill, though, take it from Penny (the canine companion of peta2 Manager Ryan Huling), who is clearly spellbound by Free the Animals.

Update: Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump's hideous African hunting trip is under investigation by Zimbabwean authorities. Among the potential problems noted by the Zimbabwean Conservation Task Force were the following: The brothers may have illegally used dogs to kill an endangered leopard, the South African safari firm they used was not registered to hunt in Zimbabwe and may not have been cleared by wildlife authorities, and licensing and trophy fees may not have been paid.

Authorities are also investigating the Trumps' claims that they donated meat from the animals they killed to local villagers, as there are no villages near where the brothers hunted. If they are found to be in breach of hunting laws, the Trump brothers and officials from the safari firm could face imprisonment or a fine of up to $500,000.

Johnny Rodrigues, chairperson of the Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force, said, "This is the problem with those who … think they can come to manipulate and control people, destroy natural resources, and say 'we came to help.' We don't want them here."

Hear, hear!

The following text was originally published on March 14, 2012.

Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump are the targets of more media scrutiny than Barack Obama's birth certificate after pictures surfaced online of the pair posing with wild animals they had killed on safari in Zimbabwe. Each "trophy" was procured for a fee—how macho is that?

Dressed as if to play extras in Rambo, the brothers posed for photographs, including one sick enough to make a grown man, other than a Go Daddy CEO, lose his lunch: Don holds his knife in one hand and the severed tail of an elephant he's shot in the other. An elephant! In another photo, Eric sits atop a Cape buffalo, using the animal's corpse as a gun and hat rack. Another photo shows both brothers standing next to a massive crocodile whom the Great White Bwana Boys no doubt had "the help" hang up by a noose from a tree branch. In a joint statement, the brothers said, "We have the utmost respect for nature and have always hunted in accordance with local laws and regulations." If this conduct constitutes respect, I really don't want to know what their contempt looks like.

Read Ingrid Newkirk's full article on Huffington Post here.

fwooper | cc by 2.0

The impossible happened—for a split second anyway. I momentarily laughed during a bullfight—or rather, during a matador's wardrobe malfunction, which drew plenty of guffaws and catcalls from the audience. Watch as Alvaro Marin runs, bare-bottomed, from a bull—and then fashions an adult diaper out of a piece of cloth. 

Of course, just like the tormented bull, the laughter was short-lived: Marin returned to the ring to slaughter the animal. Any shame that Alvaro Marin felt about his impromptu reveal was misdirected. As another Alvaro—the bullfighter-turned-vegetarian animal defender—notes, the continued killing of bulls in bullfights should bring shame and sorrow. Until these bloody slaughters are banned, they should also bring your protests. 

Written by Karin Bennett

The guy’s leading the charge to invigorate global warming advocacy, he’s consistently getting attention for the issue in the mainstream media, and he’s setting the agenda by which people think about global warming and its effect on our lives. So why the hell is PETA publicly rebuking him? Well, honestly, it’s for pretty much those same reasons. It’s great that he cares —; it really is — but for him to leave factory farming (i.e., the number one cause of the problem in the first place) out of the debate just because it doesn’t seem particularly convenient to him to have to reevaluate his lifestyle is irresponsible to a degree that’s almost unfathomable in light of the influence that he has on public opinion about this issue.

Of course, if you’ve been reading this blog more or less regularly, you will have already heard variations on this theme—but I’m bringing it up again today to highlight a really fantastic article by PETA Vice President Bruce Friedrich in yesterday’s Huffington Post. Here’s an excerpt:

I think Bruce nails it with this one, so be sure to check out the full article here, and feel free to comment with your perspective. I know this issue’s a bit controversial, but it’s a vitally important discussion to have.

-Jack