Earlier this morning, PETA sent a letter to Yankees pitcher Roger Clemens (the latest player to face scrutiny in the steroids scandal), urging him to prove that he is committed to being drug-free—by going vegetarian. I’ll leave it for the sports pundits to discuss whether or not Clemens ever deliberately took steroids to help with his pitching, but there's no question that the guy has been ingesting growth-promoting drugs for as long as he’s been a meat-eater. In order to make them grow fatter faster and to ward off the disease in the filthy conditions on today's factory farms, cows, pigs, and chickens are pumped full of growth-promoting hormones, and anyone who eats their flesh will be getting an unhealthy dose of the drugs themselves—no injections from trainers required.

As an aside, I should point out that this is by far the nicest letter that my friend and colleague Dan Shannon—who is an avid Red Sox fan—has ever written to a Yankee. You can check it out here.

Following an undercover investigation which revealed unbelievable cruelty to animals at the Weizmann Institute in Israel, PETA members gathered outside the American Committee for the Weizmann Institute of Science yesterday to express their outrage at experiments in which live cats and monkeys have holes drilled into their skulls and are confined in restraint chairs for up to 8 hours at a time. You can see pictures from the demonstration below, as well as footage of the investigation, which was conducted by the Israeli group Let the Animals Live.

The Weizmann Institute is funded in part by generous donations from people who probably have no idea of the torture that they’re paying for. You can be sure that we’ll be doing everything in our power to make sure these donors know exactly where their money is going.

HBO’s I Am an Animal: The Story of Ingrid Newkirk and PETA was officially released on DVD today, so you should definitely put in an order for it if you haven’t seen it yet. Although it leaves out one kind of important point, the documentary is a fascinating look at the inner workings of PETA—from how the organization’s campaign ideas are born to what goes into an undercover investigation to what Ingrid Newkirk eats for breakfast.

To save you the trouble, the answer to that last question is “oatmeal,” but if you have some more pressing questions for Ingrid after watching this documentary, now’s the time to ask them. Either leave a comment with your (polite) question, or just e-mail it to me, and I’ll compile them all and pass them onto her. I’ll send her the questions over the next few days and post a blog with the answers in a couple of weeks’ time.

Britney in Furs

With that in mind, we've decided to give Britney a bit of a break this year, and take her off the Worst-Dressed-List poll, despite the fact that she had established herself as a strong front-runner in the first two days of voting. Here's what PETA Vice President Dan Mathews had to say about the decision:

So there you have it, but the question is, did we make the right choice in giving Brit a break this year despite her unfortunate penchant for, um, flaunting her fur in public? Please feel free to comment with your thoughts.

PETA got a call this week from representatives of Denny's restaurants confirming that the company has ended its partnership with the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. Denny's smart decision to sever ties with a company that (among other things) beats animals with steel-tipped hooks to make them perform required a little bit of pushing from our end, including protests at Denny's HQ and outside Denny's CEO Nelson Marchioli's speaking engagements, mailings to every Denny's restaurant in the country, personal meetings with restaurant managers, countless calls and emails from our members, a spoof website, and a shareholder resolution calling on the company to end its affiliation with Ringling.

The point I want to really drive home here is that with awesome, creative animal-free circuses like Cirque Du Soleil delighting audiences around the country, there's absolutely no reason why a company looking to do a circus promotion would ever need to get into bed with Ringling Bros. It's outdated, it's unethical, and it's bad for business. And we'll do everything we can to make sure the world knows that.

Denny's joins General Mills, Burger King, Liz Claiborne, MasterCard, Ford Motor Company, and Sears, Roebuck and Co., all of which ended their sponsorships of either Ringling or UniverSoul circuses following negotiations with PETA. Here's what PETA Director Debbie Leahy had to say about the victory:

A huge thank you to everyone who took action on this campaign—calling or e-mailing Denny's, participating in protests, or simply encouraging their friends and family to boycott the company until it ended its association with Ringling. This is a big victory for the animals suffering under the Big Top, and it sends an important message to circuses that use animals that their days are numbered. But they already knew that.

And finally, if you have a moment, please click here to ask AAA to follow Denny’s lead and sever all ties with Ringling Bros.

If you’ve checked the front page of PETA’s site lately, you’ll know that our good friend Pink has stepped up in a big way for horses who are victimized by the carriage horse industry in New York by creating a petition against the cruel business and starring in a billboard to help educate people about the horrors that go on behind the scenes in that industry.

Anyone who works in advertising will know that getting a billboard placed can be a tricky business sometimes—some billboards end up on the side of a dirt road in, like, Pottawattamie, Iowa, and some just never see the light of day at all. So these shots of Pink’s beautiful new ad in Times Square, New York, are nothing short of glorious. Check 'em out (then sign Pink’s petition here).

If you haven’t seen it yet, it is imperative that you watch this new video for our ABC Campaign, which is both an initiative to educate people about the importance of spaying and neutering their animals, and stop breeders from pumping out thousands of pups every year who take homes from those destined to die in shelters. What I like about Sex Talk, and the other spot we’ve put together for this campaign, is that it’s a lot more than just a funny ad. There’s something about it that makes you really uncomfortable—which, I guess, is exactly what a proper chat about the birds and the bees is supposed to. Check it out if you haven’t seen it yet, and you can watch the other video (Buy One, Get One Free) here.

This vegansexuals story just won’t die. I can’t believe all the play it’s getting, especially on the Internet. There was a film crew in the office the other day shooting for this local piece, and it really got me thinking about how, at least here at PETA HQ, the vegansexual thing just doesn’t play. If anything, it’s the exact opposite. I’ve even heard rumors from old timers that Ingrid once forbade intra-office dating, simply on the grounds that she wanted the staff out meeting new people to make vegan.

Take my old boss, for instance. She has a foolproof system for taking the average unsuspecting meat-eating sailor or merchant marine under her wing and turning him into a hardcore vegan animal rights activist within a month. No joke. She’ll show up with these dudes and you can just tell that they’re completely helpless under her vegan goddess natural foods tantric love spell. Of course, once she gets them good and indoctrinated, she cuts them loose and finds her next prey, and with Norfolk being a big Navy town, with new guys arriving in port all the time, there is always another “victim” in line. Sometimes I feel a little bad for them, especially the ones that roll up wearing dress blues in their fancy raised pick-ups and by the time they leave they’re well on their way to joining an organic commune or living in a van and playing hacky sack all day. OK, so maybe I’m exaggerating a little bit, but seriously, you can’t make this stuff up.

Anyway, enjoy the video. And fair warning to the meat-eating readers out there, most animal rights folks aren’t of the vegansexual persuasion, so that hot guy or gal you’re eyeing at the bar just may be on their own personal mission to turn the world vegan one person at a time . . . by any means necessary.

Sooooooo, a lot of blogs have been talking about this weird new concept of "Vegansexuals". Some psychologist in New Zealand coined the word after conducting a study which found that some vegans just don't really like to do it with meat-eaters. A high percentage of respondents evidently reported that meat-eaters smell funky. Tucker Carlson reported on the story last week, and made the claim out of left field that being a vegan kills your sex drive. I have no idea where Tucker pulled this myth from (maybe a bad experience with a lethargic hippie in college?), but I can guarantee that if he just finds the right vegan girl, he'll change his mind quicker than it takes him to put on that dapper new tie of his in the morning.

Tucker did follow up the story the next day with a nice piece in which he read our statement on the topic—he claims he hasn’t changed his opinion yet, but he’ll come around. … Anyway, onto PETA's position: We're pro inter-dietary dating for about a million reasons; for one thing, if you're ever going to persuade someone that they need to stop eating animals, you need to be around them, talk to them, listen to their point of view, and, hell, sometimes even sleep with them. Being vegan isn't about being in a club, and while there's nothing wrong with having a preference for someone who shares your views, I wouldn't want anyone to think that giving up meat means you have to drain the ol’ dating pool at the same time. As Tucker pointed out, going vegetarian is supposed to get you girls, not cut off your options.

Finally, on a more personal note, sometimes it’s difficult enough as it is. I'll take it where I can damn well get it.

P.S. Eating meat causes impotence.