About seven years ago, PetSmart CEO Phillip Francis made a commitment not to sell rabbits in PetSmart stores because of the high numbers of bunnies who are dumped in shelters after the novelty of an impulse purchase wears off. "Our brand name stands for ethics, quality, health and good care for animals and we're always willing to forego the short run marginal sale because our standards are higher and our ethics are little bit better," he said. Well, either that was an empty promise or else PetSmart Corporate decided it was a good business decision to lower their ethical standards in the intervening years, since the company has announced that it will start selling rabbits in its stores, despite the thousands of rabbits who are abandoned to die in shelters every year.

As you probably know, we're pretty unhappy with the company as it is, based on their lousy record of animal care and their refusal to stop selling animals in the first place. So we sent our own bunny to sort them out. Check out the pics below, and an article about the protest here. And you can write to PetSmart about this issue at http://getactive.peta.org/campaign/petsmart_rabbit_cruelty.

N.B. Please note that I was able to avoid using the phrase "hopping mad" throughout this entire post. I feel like I deserve some credit for showing such considerable restraint.

If you’re even kind of into fashion, then you know that Nicole Miller is a pretty big deal. So, we were beyond excited to see this story about Miller’s recent announcement that she is going totally fur-free.

FashionEncyclopedia/Creative Commons

The grassroots group NYC Animal Rights had their sites set on Miller for protests during the upcoming fashion week, but it looks like they are shifting their focus to Michael Kors instead. Good luck NYC Animal Rights!

Did you happen to see The Tonight Show on Tuesday night? Leno unveiled his new set, which includes—drum roll please—a spiffy new set of pleather couches. Yes, pleather. Leno even made the comment that no animals were used to make them.

Maybe 2007’s Sexiest Vegetarian contest winner Kevin Eubanks had a little something to do with the switch to synthetic sofas . . .

As lawyers go, Ringling Bros. has some pretty fancy, expensive ones, but despite their best efforts last week, they couldn't keep the circus from being dragged into the courtroom once again, this time on charges of (surprise, surprise) elephant abuse. Judge Emmet Sullivan announced Thursday that a last ditch attempt by Ringling's attorneys to hold up the proceedings was a "waste of a considerable amount of [the court's] time and resources," and that the case, which was brought by a consortium of animal protection groups and a former Ringling Employee, will go forward. The circus stands accused of violating the Endangered Species Act by "abusively training and disciplining elephants with sharp implements such as bullhooks, by intensively confining and chaining the multi-ton animals for prolonged periods, and by forcibly separating baby elephants from their mothers." Given that the ol' Endangered Species Act doesn't look too kindly on those training practices, it sounds like Ringling's going to be in a world of trouble. 'Cuz that's pretty much all they do.

As part of a Marketing ploy to tap into the feminist "post-punk chic" demographic (OK, I just made that demographic up, but it sounds like it could be a real thing), handbag designers Hogan recently launched a line of leather bags named after badass rock chicks. Given that Joan Jett, Kathleen Hannah, and Pink, (to name a few) have all worked with PETA in the past on our anti-animal-skins campaigns, this was kind of landmine territory for Hogan, and the whole thing went downhill fast when they decided to name a pony-skin bag "The Chrissie" after The Pretenders' Chrissie Hynde-who is a lifelong animal rights activist and has staged protests around the world against the cruelty of the leather industry:

I love you, Chrissie Hynde.

You can read the full story here.

Ummm, OMFG. Think Wynona Ryder in Beetlejuice meets that scary 35 year old Hot Topic employee at the mall, and you’re on the right track to getting your head around our annual “I’m Too Sexy For Leather” contest.

Granted, I’m more of a Paul Frank flannel nightshirt kind of guy, but all joking aside, there’s no denying that all of these pics are super hot in their own way. . . Even for sticks in the mud like me who aren’t all that into dreadlocked dudes riding vintage bikes while wearing pleather pants and straightjackets.

In case you thought we were just kidding when we wrote to Al Gore urging him to go vegetarian to help stop global warming, maybe this ad will clarify our position for you.

The evidence is in, and though it may be a little inconvenient for Mr. Gore to hear, the facts don’t lie. This U.N. report shows that animals raised for food generate more greenhouse gases than all cars and trucks combined, and goes on to say that meat is "one of the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global," including land degradation, air pollution, water shortage and pollution, loss of biodiversity, and of course climate change. And according to a recent University of Chicago study, switching to a vegan diet is more effective in countering global warming than switching from a standard American car to a Prius. We even went so far as to offer to cook him faux “fried chicken” as an intro to vegetarian meals, since, no matter how many of those cool little energy saving light bulbs you put in, the reality is that there just isn’t such a thing as a meat-eating environmentalist.

This story about the whole issue ran in The New York Times today, but Gore declined to comment. Mr. Gore, you’ve done so much good by putting yourself out there as the face of the anti-global warming movement, and you’re so right on so much of it, but come on, it really is high time to put some substance behind it by leading by example and doing the single most effective thing you can do to address the issue: simply going vegetarian.

If you’re into food at all then you’ve probably heard of Mark Bittman, author of the New York Times’ “Minimalist” column. But even if you don’t know Bittman by name, I’m sure you’ve heard of his book, How to Cook Everything. It’s been wildly successful because of its relaxed, accessible and realistic approach to everyday cooking. Well, that’s all well and good but it ain’t a vegetarian cookbook, you say. Well, Bittman is just about to release a new book, How to Cook Everything Vegetarian, and it looks pretty darn good to me.

HamiltonSpectator/Creative Commons

Here’s an interview from Publishers Weekly that explains why Bittman decided to write a vegetarian cookbook.