It's the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. In the case of animal abusers, every so often they get done unto them just as they do. Here are this year's best stories in which the Golden Rule put its game face on: 

Leg photo © iStockphoto.com/Shelly Perry  Shark photo © Getty Images/Digital Vision/Carl Roessler

• What do you get when you attach knives to birds' legs and bet on how quickly one will kill the other? One California man attending a cockfight found out the hard way.
• Ah, España. So much to love—the beaches, the cathedrals, the food, the evisceration of men who insist on tormenting animals who have large, pointy horns …
• Isn't there a saying (and if not, there should be)—when the gun is in someone else's paws, the hunter gets shot?
• If fish had newspapers, the headline for the article about this incident would've been "Shark OK After Angler Attack."
• When a mortally wounded deer uses the last of his strength to kill his attacker, the tragedy at least has a bittersweet ending.

Looks like animal abusers might want to consider a New Year's resolution to adhere to the Golden Rule … or else.

Animals don't always take abuse lying down. These resourceful animals fought back and made their own animal rights demonstrations:

• A New Jersey man learned the hard way never to trust an exotic animal dealer, no matter what he tells you.
• A grieving mother elephant turned the tables on villagers after they killed her calf.
• A fox clamped her own steel-jaw trap on a hunter's arm.
• A rooster took the law into his own, er, talons at an illegal cockfight. 
• A bull made a rodeo drive straight into the audience. 

eschipul/cc by 2.0

Written by Michelle Sherrow

jinterwas/CC by 2.0

A hunter in Belarus wound up in the hospital after he was shot by a fox he had wounded and was trying to kill with the butt of his rifle. As the determined fox fought back, she pulled the trigger of the gun with her paw. The bullet struck the hunter's leg, and the fox made her escape.

Here's hoping that the fox is recovering and that the hunter has learned his lesson. If not, the next time they come face to face, she just might take a trophy for her den.

Written by Michelle Sherrow

Whether you believe in karma or payback, in 2010 we saw that for every action there is a reaction. We've rounded up the top six "Payback Is Hell" stories of 2010. It's safe to say that animals are just as tired of cruelty to animals as we are.

1. A bull decided that he no longer wanted to be ridiculed and repeatedly stabbed with banderillas for people's entertainment, so he charged the matador and told him, "Up yours." ¡Olé!
2. A truck driver learned that chomping on fried pork rinds while driving can lead to a sudden impact and a near-death experience when he choked and crashed his truck into a ditch.
3. After shooting and butchering a pig, a man was accidentally shot when his dog stepped on the man's own rifle.
4. Seven people who were running intoxicated in the path of raging bulls were trampled and injured in Pamplona.
5. When a giraffe and an elephant revolted against their imprisonment in zoos, one zookeeper was attacked and another man died.
6. After being taken from his ocean home as a baby and enduring years of frustration from being confined in a tiny tank, an orca, Tilikum, struck back and killed a trainer at SeaWorld.

Written by Mirisa Roy

And, this week's 10% Wool "Tag and Release" winner is ... Beth Ann! Congratulations.

So I see that Ringling Bros. is trying to expand its "Greatest Show on Earth" slogan …

Don't forget to check out the archive of past 10% Wool comic strips here. Get more information on the series and the writer here, and learn how to get Jeff's other comic, DeFlocked, into your local paper here.

Pleple2000 / CC by 2.0

Earlier this week, we told you the cautionary tale of a pork rind–munching trucker who nearly choked to death. Now we turn your attention to a report about a man who, after shooting and butchering a domestic pig, took a bullet himself after his dog stepped on the loaded rifle that the man had placed on the front seat of his pickup truck. The man is expected make a full recovery.

So here's some food for thought: If pig-eaters aren't concerned that their habit is cruel to animals. and dangerous to their own health and the environment, will the increasing threat of cosmic justice convince them to drop the chops? Your thoughts?

Written by Karin Bennett

jere-me / CC by 2.0

Show me a bag of pork rinds and two things will happen. First, images like this and that will race through my mind. Then I'll get choked up.

The revolting* "snack" made a truck driver named Edward Sutherland get choked up too—only his reaction was apparently not prompted by thoughts of what animals endured before they went down his gullet. Mr. Sutherland lost control of his rig, which careened across the interstate, jackknifed, and landed in a ditch.

The truck did not hit any other vehicles, and Mr. Sutherland walked away with minor injuries—and a citation for driving with his wheels off the road. Had I been the cop at the scene, I might have let him go with a warning—to eat only Pirate's Booty. How would you complete the following: "____—now that vegan snack is the ticket!"

Written by Karin Bennett

*If you know any people who don't think that eating fried pigskin is revolting, they just might after you show them this video of how it's made.

We send our condolences today to Joyce Brabner, the widow of underground comic book genius Harvey Pekar, who recently died. We remember the days when Joyce visited our office in sparkly Wizard of Oz Dorothy slippers and colored ankle socks. She is a socially astute fighter for animal rights who created the classic Animal Rights Comics. The two-issue set of comic books is based on PETA's precedent-setting "Silver Spring monkeys" case, which resulted in the first arrest and criminal conviction of an animal experimenter in the U.S. on charges of cruelty to animals, the first confiscation of abused animals from a laboratory, and the first U.S. Supreme Court victory for animals in laboratories. Joyce recognized it as a landmark case—one that led to countless other undercover investigations—and so she decided to memorialize it.

If anyone out there has copies of the now out-of-print comics, please let us know. We have a set in our archives, but it would be nice to know that there are more copies in circulation. If there's enough interest, perhaps one day they will be reprinted. Joyce, from our hearts to yours, we wish you the best.

Written by Jennifer O'Connor

Rocsi Diaz, the bubbly and beautiful host of BET's 106 & Park is known for bringing viewers the hottest music videos straight from the streets of Manhattan. But the Honduran mamacita recently stepped away from the streets to hang out on the beach with one of her adopted dogs, Chi Chi, and she used this R&R time to shoot a new peta2 "Adopt an Animal" ad. Check it out:

Rocsi also sat down in front of the cameras and used her veejay personality to encourage people to help dogs and cats by rescuing them from the streets or adopting them from shelters—and by having them spayed or neutered.

Want to see the interview and hear what the Midday Mami has to say about companion animals? Head on over to peta2.

Written by Heather Moore

"Ethically handsome" blogger Joshua Katcher, a multitalented artist, a writer, a producer, and an eco-style guru, has created an epically handsome ad that shares some baaad (sorry) news about one of climate change's lesser-known black sheep (sorry)—the wool industry:

Did you know that sheep outnumber people by more than four to one in Australia, one of the world's largest wool-marketing nations? Not only do all those poor sheep create an awful lot of climate-cooking methane gas as a result of, ahem, "enteric fermentation," they also produce an enormous amount of waste, which contributes to both air and water pollution. Sheep farmers also love to douse animals with toxic "sheep dip" and advocate killing off all manner of wildlife (kangaroos, dingoes, and rabbits in Australia and coyotes in the U.S.) in cruel ways (poisoning, trapping, etc.) because they compete with sheep for land and, in some cases, harass and kill sheep before the farmers can do that themselves. And don't even get me started on the mulesing mulitation, which is definitely in the running for the world's cruelest "standard agricultural practice."

So, if a fleecy three-piece is out, what shall Cinderfella wear to the boardroom? Try this on for size, you handsome devil angel, you.

Via The Discerning Brute

Written by Alisa Mullins