As a Mac user, I make every effort to be annoyingly and irrationally biased against everything that Microsoft does, regardless of how good it actually is. Unfortunately for my techie cred, my perfect run of peevish, knee-jerk reactions to Microsoft products has come to an abrupt end with their new device for testing to see whether you're actually a human (as opposed to one of them evil Internet-trawling spam robots). Most people have had the experience of signing up for an online community or another Internet service and coming up against what looks like an eye test from Hell, where you have to attempt to duplicate a series of barely recognizable letters and numbers.

Well, Microsoft's alternative, Asirra, looks a lot less like a torture device for dyslexics and a lot more like a bonafide public service, given that the company has teamed up with Petfinder.com to allow Asirra users—who are asked to pick the cats out of a series of pictures of cats and dogs—to apply to adopt the homeless animals in the pictures. Anyway, I thought that was a pretty innovative way of combating the cat and dog overpopulation problem we're facing, and I hope it catches on. Check it out:

Here's the thing. We're a little ways away from getting shoe companies to ditch the leather entirely—though we've made some significant headway by encouraging retailers like The Gap to boycott the Indian leather industry, which really goes out of its way to be unpleasant to animals. That said, there's something particularly hideous about Nike's decision to celebrate the 25th Anniversary of their Air Force Ones by making a special edition shoe out of crocodiles. Come on, guys—couldn't you have just cranked up the Nelly and thrown a kegger or something? Nike seriously needs to fire whoever it was in their marketing department who thought that brutally killing reptiles would be a cool way to celebrate their silver anniversary.

Anyway, the good news is that people are outraged about the promotion, and Nike's been taking a lot of flak about it in the media, which has helped to raise awareness about the suffering of crocodiles used for clothing, who are often caught in the wild with huge hooks and reeled in when they become weakened from blood loss. It also gives me an excuse to post this amazing PSA featuring Gena Lee Nolin. Enjoy.

Well, hot damn. For a month now, our crack team of cuteness consultants in PETA's Fabulousness Department have been poring over this year's sizzling-hot batch of entries for our Sexiest Vegetarian competition, and they've finally emerged, exhausted from all the attractiveness, with an eye-popping line-up of spectacular, jaw-droppingly gorgeous finalists for you to feast your eager eyes on. OK, even if I hadn't run out of synonyms for "sexy" a while back, there's just no way I can sustain this kind of rhetoric for an entire entry, but hopefully you get the point. The finalists have been announced, and you can vote for the sexiest here. This year's winners get a trip to Hawaii.

Click the ridiculously sexy vegetarian below to check out this year's top twenty. And don't forget to vote.