livesets.nu / CC

I got my first vegan pancake recipe from Moby when his berry flapjacks were featured way back when in Seventeen magazine.

He could have stopped there, but it seems like Moby keeps coming up with ways to win my animal-loving heart.

In a recent blog entry, Moby goes the extra mile for animals and the planet by calling out "environmentalist" Al Gore over his refusal to ever mention that animal consumption is the leading cause of climate change. Moby says:

Gore should have named his movie Sorta-Inconvenient Truths if he didn't want to cover the environmental destruction that his meaty diet causes.

Written by Shawna Flavell

The following is a guest post from peta2's Lara.

Greetings from our nation's capital! Pop quiz: What do Michelle Obama and PETA have in common? No, it's not our toned biceps. Yes, we are both anti-fur, but that's not what I'm getting at either. It's that we both have volunteered with a great organization called Miriam's Kitchen. Miriam's Kitchen is a D.C.-based nonprofit that provides free meals and support services to homeless people.

Since PETA is relatively new to the neighborhood, we wanted to pitch in and help out the community. And what better way to do that than with vegan pancakes?

 

 

Today, we had the great opportunity to prepare and serve the first vegan breakfast in Miriam's Kitchen history.

On the menu:

• Fluffy vegan pancakes with strawberry topping and non-Canadian maple syrup
• Fruit salad
• Hearty veggie chili and brown rice
• Salad
• Coffee with soy milk and orange juice

At first, the vegan breakfast was met with some skepticism, but afterwards, the empty plates spoke for themselves. Here are some reviews from some of the people I spoke with:

Indeed we are.

Written by Lara Sanders

When it comes to what we drizzle on our pancakes, grits, and oatmeal, we've all got our preferences. If, like me, you prefer pure maple syrup over Aunt Jemima or Log Cabin (corn) syrup, taking a minute to see where your favorite restaurants' syrup comes from—and encouraging them not to buy the stuff imported from Canada—can help put an end to the seal slaughter.

Why maple syrup?

Canada produces about 85 percent of the world's maple syrup, an industry that rakes in around $C213 million each year. Our newest campaign encourages restaurants and grocery chains to boycott Canada's multimillion-dollar syrup industry. By persuading businesses to sign our pledge, you'll be letting the Canadian government know that the country is going to get a serious hit in the wallet unless it declares an end to the seal massacre.

If your local eatery is already using American maple syrup, pour it on thick (it's safe to use Aunt Jemima and Log Cabin too) and thank the owner that no seal blood was spilled for your breakfast or brinner.

Posted by Shawna Flavell

There was no love lost between the Chicago Blackhawks and the Detroit Red Wings as they battled on the ice last night in game three of the Stanley Cup playoffs, but there was love in the stands during intermission when Jason Levy asked his girlfriend, Nicole Hughes, to marry him.

But wait—there's more! While the couple's special moment was rolling live on the stadium's huge screen, Jason surprised the audience when he held up a sign reading, "McDonald's Breaks Birds' Wings and Legs."

 

 

Jason jumped at the perfect opportunity to tell thousands of people that the fast-food giant refuses to alleviate the suffering of the chickens killed for its restaurants by adopting an improved slaughter method called "controlled-atmosphere killing." Currently, birds killed for McDonald's are grabbed by their legs and slammed upside-down into shackles, and many are still conscious when their throats are cut and they are immersed in scalding water.

 

 

So, to sum up: First, PETA Foundation staffer Alex Bury and her then-fiancé Jack Norris got hitched at a KFC restaurant in Toronto to celebrate the introduction of a faux chicken sandwich at most Canadian KFC outlets. Then, Jason Levy spotlights McDonald's cruelties to birds in his marriage proposal.

Anybody else have any ideas for the "fast-food cruelty nope-tials" (ouch) tour?

Written by Karin Bennett

 

made-in-china / CC

From the category of "Well, duh" comes this story out of Copenhagen: A Danish journalist was found guilty this week of deliberately killing 12 guppies and, logically, of violating animal protection laws.

In an effort to demonstrate the toxicity level of a shampoo, TV host Lisbeth Koelster poured shampoo into an aquarium and, lo and behold, almost all the guppies were poisoned to death.

I'd say that's about as far from protection as you can get.

Of course, the journalist's lawyer argued that the charges were erroneous—I guess sea kittens don't warrant protection? "Fish are killed by suffocation in industrial fisheries and we throw live lobsters into boiling water," he said, "but we don't press charges against fishermen or restaurant owners."

Well! If that doesn't just give us ideas ….

Written by Amanda Schinke

The swine flu epidemic has hit Asia—and so has PETA Asia-Pacific's intrepid team of biohazard-suited protesters. They gathered outside the U.S. Embassy in Manila to point out the fact that factory farms are breeding grounds for deadly diseases such as swine flu and avian flu.

 

Thanks for the guard detail, boys! We'll take it from here.

[Heavy breathing] "Luke, I am your father. Stop eating meat, Luke."

 

Want to help prevent another swine flu outbreak? Click here to send a message to your Congressional representatives. Oh, and don't forget to go vegetarian.

Written by Lianne Turner

Heads up, Pittsburgh: A menagerie of costumed wolves, rabbits, foxes, and other fake fauna are about to converge on your city.

And no, it has nothing to do with PETA.

Actually, it's all about Anthrocon—the world's largest "Furry" convention. OK, so if you don't know what a Furry is, I know you're dying to ask. In a nutshell, a Furry is a person who is totally into animal anthropomorphism (assigning animals human traits). I mean totally into it. We're talking loving fictional animal characters so much that they often wear mascot-like costumes of their fave animals (think Crayola-colored cheetahs in cargo pants).

Which is where PETA came into the picture. Don't get me wrong, we weren't trying to harsh their mellow. We just wanted to make sure that convention-going "Fursuiters"—as they like to be called—weren't parading around in the pelts of real animals. Here's the letter we sent to them:

 

 

Their response?

Written by Amy Elizabeth

 

dhakamirror / CC

This past weekend, Pamela Anderson was in Austria with Bill Clinton, Eva Longoria, and Katy Perry for Vienna's annual Life Ball AIDS benefit. But before she wowed the Life Ball crowd in her gold bikini, Pam bared her heart of gold, behind closed doors, to Austria's justice minister, Claudia Bandion-Ortner.

Bandion-Ortner invited Pamela to meet with her after the bombshell's letter urging the minister to stop stifling free speech made front-page news. See, the Austrian police are trying to classify all animal rights groups as "criminals," despite the fact that very few engage in illegal activities. In her letter, Pamela made compelling points against such blanket persecution, noting that the Austrian government seemed to be behaving more like a dictatorship than a democracy. The minister assured Pam that she'd monitor the situation—and that there would be no witch hunt on her watch. Then she stood beside the blonde babe and smiled as staffers snapped away with their cameras.

Pamela and PETA's Dan Mathews then high-tailed it to the Life Ball, where Pam wriggled into her bikini and opened the festivities.

Written by Karin Bennett

 

igougo / CC

In an attempt to shrink its carbon footprint, the charming town of Ghent, Belgium, just took one gigantic, progressive step by deciding to go vegetarian for one day each week.

Instead of just feeling bad that meat production leads to more greenhouse-gas emissions than all the vehicles with engines in the world combined, these good folks decided to act. They'll get things rollin' with their city employees and then spread the good behavior on to school children come September.

Delighted at this news, PETA President Ingrid E. Newkirk penned some letters of encouragement to a few cities stateside in an effort to nudge them forward in the fight against climate change. This simple step—not eating meat for a day—literally saves hundreds of lives.

Care about the planet? Check out the many reasons why "meat's not green" on our YouTube channel, thengo on and give a vegetarian diet the old college try!

Written by Missy Lane