Pamela Anderson is truly amazing. Seriously, could the woman do any more for animals? This time, she got wind of KFC’s plans to expand in Russia, and jumped at the chance to write the president of KFC’s partner company there, urging him to use his influence to convince the company to protect the 850,000 chickens it kills from the worst abuses they suffer.

And of course, the Russian press was all over the story.

Here’s a copy of Pam’s letter, and I’ll let you know if we get a response.

This week, the folks at Unilever—the parent company for Axe Body Spray—learned the hard way that you can't perform nasty animal experiments for your product and have Pamela Anderson star in your ad campaigns. It's really one of those “one or the other” situations—both is just greedy. And, of course, it's worth mentioning that maiming and killing animals when you trawl out a new product is a singularly unpleasant way of carrying on in the first place.

Anyway, here's the letter that the wonderful Pamela wrote to Unilever asking them to get their heads out of their … um, out of the sand, and move their testing policy into the 21st century. Pamela, I know I've said this before, but I love you.

P.S. Click here for the full list of PETA—and Pam—approved companies that don’t test on animals.

Allie "Gullible's not in the dictionary" Sullivan

I know I've been going on ad nauseam about my little April Fools joke, but did you see Ecorazzi’s? Pretty funny, I think. And obviously a joke, right?

Obvious to most of us, but not all. My friend Allie actually screamed with excitement when she thought Paris Hilton was doing an ad for us. I don’t remember her exact words, but they were something like “Really?! Holy COW! Like, oh my god!” I actually felt bad breaking the news to her that the ad wasn’t going to happen, but I felt worse about the ridicule she received from the entire marketing department for the rest of the day.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t feel THAT bad, which is why I’m sharing the beautiful story with thousands of people on the Internet. Nice work, Ecorazzi. There's a sucker born every minute, but our Allie is one in a million.

I’ve got some wild stuff for you this week, so let’s get into it.

This couple REALLY loved their dog. Um, wow.

I don’t particularly like Alanis Morissette or the Black Eyed Peas all that much, but somehow putting them together is, well, magical.

I promise I didn't take the clown’s missing bike, but I bet the tip line in the story works for telling Ringling what you think of its animal abuse too.

Did you see the story about blood from an animal lab spraying out of a sewer onto people on the street? So disgusting.

Here’s a pretty decent piece about pork from The New York Times, just in time for Easter.

OK, is it me or is this just beyond crazy? We’re at war and the Army is spending millions putting on a rodeo. WTF, Army?

I love this funny bit about PETA protesting the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Amnesty Internation protesting PETA, the ACLU protesting Amnesty, the Christian Coalition protesting the ACLU, and Fred Phelps protesting everyone and everything. A for effort on this one, Spoof guys.

Zoos will do anything to get their animals to breed so they can make a buck, I swear.

These videos show just how insane and detached from the rest of the world the pork industry really is. Insanity.

And finally . . .

Here’s a short animated video about the seal hunt, done by Canadian Graeme MacKay, editorial cartoonist from The Hamilton Spectator.

It’s not out in theaters until April 13th, but my friend Bruce went to an advanced screening and told me that Year of the Dog is an amazing movie for anyone who loves animals.

It’s got a great cast led by Molly Shannon, Peter Sarsgaard, John C. Reilly and Regina King, so this will be a good one to take your non-animal'ey friends and family to. And a good way to invite them to see it is by sending them one of these e-cards. I’ve been sending them all day! Here's one I made with my friend Princess Cuteyface. Whatever. You try telling her she's not a dog, and see where it gets you.

Meet the ‘Dog of the Year’

Inexplicably, Hooters says, 'No Pam' Creative Commons

I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for Hooters restaurants, because, in addition to being such a wholesome, tasteful place to go to with the family, they make these truly amazing fried pickles. OK, the “wholesome, tasteful” stuff is a bit of a stretch, but those pickles are seriously out of this world. Anyway, my feelings towards the place have cooled a little bit since PETA VP Dan Mathews told me what went down this week when he tried to book a Hooters in New York for a private party to launch his new book, Committed: A Rabble Rouser’s Memoir. The plan was to have Pamela Anderson host the party, where they were going to serve veggie Buffalo wings to the guests. But Hooters execs refused to allow the event, because, evidently, "PETA mobilizes strong feelings on both sides of the fence. It wouldn't make good business sense for us." How hilarious is it that a place called Hooters (for God’s sake) is getting all holier than thou at the prospect of having Pamela Anderson eating veggie burgers in one of their restaurants? I guess they’re afraid they won’t be able to measure up. Anyway, there was a great piece about it in the New York Post today, which you can read here.

I’m not mad at you, Hooters, just disappointed. I don’t want to suggest that I’m an expert on how to run a business, but if you’re the Marketing Department at Hooters, it just seems like such a lousy idea to go out of your way to keep Pamela Anderson out of your restaurants. And, as Dan pointed out, "Hosting the book party would have showed that Hooters is well rounded in more ways than one. We're always looking for ways to keep the 'T' and 'A' in PETA."

Damn, these victories always seem to come in pairs. Right after New Mexico announces that it has banned cockfighting, Tommy Hilfiger permanently drops fur from their collections. Citing ethical reasons for their decision, Tommy released a statement today saying:

Just so you don't get the impression that these things happen overnight, here's a little behind-the-scenes for you from PETA VP Dan Mathews. Dan first ran into Tommy Hilfiger at Pamela Anderson's wedding in San Tropez in July, where they began a discussion about the ethical issues surrounding the fur industry (you know, the kind of stuff that always comes up at weddings), and they met again more recently at the World Music Awards in London in October to talk some more. Dan and Tommy had been planning on meeting again in New York this week, but it looks like that's not going to be necessary anymore. Anyway, since Pamela Anderson was responsible for the meeting in the first place, I figured I'd let her have the last word. Here's what she said about the great news when asked for comment:

Having been on the receiving end of a few coolly worded e-mails from our Legal Department myself, I have a suspicion that JCPenney is in a world of pain after hearing from PETA's attorneys this week about the company's claim that it does not condone the “illegal or inhumane treatment of animals.” Given that this is pretty much the only response we get from JCPenney every time we try to talk to them about their refusal to stop selling fur, there's been a fair amount of head-scratching round here about what the hell the company thinks it's up to. Anyway, nobody likes to have to bring out the lawyers, but when your big-ass company is selling fur from places that have literally zero cruelty-to-animals laws and you have no publicly available standards of your own defining what you consider to be humane treatment, you just can't get away with telling consumers that you don't condone illegal or inhumane treatment of animals and expect people to let you go about your business as if nothing's wrong. So what's the deal, JCPenney? Does all your fur come from roadkill, maybe, or do you in fact pay people to rip it from the backs of defenseless, tortured animals just like everyone else who profits from the fur trade?

After literally decades of work by concerned citizens and celebrities like Rue McClanahan and Bill Maher and the relentless dedication of Senator Mary Jane Garcia, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson has signed a bill to ban cockfighting in the state. This was Garcia's 20th year introducing the bill to ban the vicious bloodsport, so this is a massive victory for her, for everyone who worked to raise awareness about this issue, and of course for the countless birds who are forced to fight to the death for the amusement of onlookers every year.

I'd love to say that this means that cockfighting is illegal throughout the United States, but unfortunately there's still one holdout: Everybody's looking at you, Louisiana.

Needless to say, this is pretty huge, and a lot of people have been working really hard to make this happen. If you'd like to take a moment to thank Sen. Garcia for her dedication to helping birds in New Mexico and Gov. Richardson for his compassion in signing this bill into law, their contact info is below. And if you live in Louisiana, you can click here to contact your legislators and ask them (politely) what's the big holdup.

The Honorable Mary Jane M. Garcia
New Mexico Senate
Box 22
Dona Ana, NM 88032
maryjane.garcia@nmlegis.gov

The Honorable Bill RichardsonOffice of the Governor490 Old Santa Fe Trl., Rm. 400Santa Fe, NM 87501E-mail