Severely injured dog in Sanchong shelter

Remember the Sanchong animal shelter outside Taipei, where PETA Asia-Pacific found suffering dogs kept in horrific conditions? Well, thanks to all your calls and e-mails, the city's mayor is going to meet with PETA Asia-Pacific. He wants to discuss reforms like fixing the shelter's floor and developing SOPs for caring for the sick and injured animals. But we want more—much, much more—and we need your help!

Conditions at the shelter are so bad that redoing the concrete floor and putting up a tarp to help keep out torrential rain isn't going to do it. So long as the same lazy louts are still in charge—people who stand around joking while dogs convulse at their feet—we'd like the place to be closed down and the money to be used to move strays straight from the street into veterinary care. Please tell Sanchong to use the shelter for something else, to reassign the callous workers, and to send dogs straight to the vet for treatment or euthanasia if they are pain.

PETA Asia-Pacific's Coco and local volunteers held a great demo (see below).

Ever wondered what it'd be like to roll around in Jenna Jameson's bed sheets? Well, now you can! Whoever leaves a comment below with their favorite naked PETA ad will be entered to win the autographed sheets and pillows that she posed nude on for this ad.

Gossip gurus are all worked up over recent rumors that PETA supporter Jenna Jameson is pregnant. Jenna recently stripped down to her birthday suit and slipped beneath the sheets (again, which you can win!) to appear in our new animal birth control ad.

Jenna definitely knows a thing or two about birth control—and she understands the necessity of birth control for animals too. Why is it so important? She says:

Jenna can decide for herself whether or not she has the time, love, patience, money, and desire to have a baby—animals cannot.

You can comment until August 29, 2008, to win Jenna's autographed sheets (how hot is that?). We will contact the winner on September 3, 2008. Be sure to read the contest terms and conditions and PETA's privacy policy before you comment—you're acknowledging that you have read and agree to both by leaving a comment.

KFC is known to work with suppliers that breed and drug chickens to grow so large that they can't even walk, cut off baby birds' sensitive beaks without any painkillers, and drop birds into tanks of scalding-hot water—often while they are still conscious. KFC accepts these cruel practices because they help fill the chain's buckets of chicken at a cheap price.

To highlight the twisted practices of a company that focuses on its wallets while ignoring animal welfare, we've created a series of provocative billboards. "Another Life, Another Dollar," "3 Lives for $2.99," and "Cheap Chicken Means Animals Pay a High Price" are just a few of the taglines. Hey, we never said subtlety was our forte.

Check out the ads, and then tell us which is your favorite by leaving a comment below!

Yesterday, we mentioned an advertisement that we wanted to run in a Canadian newspaper in the wake of a shocking stabbing murder and possible cannibalism in Manitoba. Countless people have contacted us with their concerns, so we'd like to explain why we wanted to run the ad that no newspaper will touch with a 10' pole.

Yes, of course we were horrified (who wouldn't be?) when we heard the details of this barbaric, incomprehensible killing. And obviously, everyone's good thoughts go out to anyone affected by this violent act. That's all a no-brainer. Now, remember, PETA is known for being provocative—that's our job. The animals don't benefit from our silence. So our thought is always: How can we get people to see that despite their feelings about this kind of violence, they are often paying someone to do exactly what was done to the man on the bus, and worse, just so that they can eat a sandwich? Voila, the ad!

We see parallels between acts of violence against humans and cruelty to animals, since both spring from a common root. We understand that such comparisons may be uncomfortable for many people, but they're not inaccurate.

Responding to violence with anger is also natural, but just being angry solves nothing, does it? Real change comes about when we channel anger or sadness into action. By juxtaposing the shocking details of the murder with the fate of animals whose bodies are casually hacked apart to end up between two slices of bread, some good will come. Already, thousands of people have visited our site not just to scream at us but also to read about slaughterhouses, and many have watched "Meat Your Meat." If you can sit through that and not see the truth in what we are saying, what can we say?

Like humans, animals are made of flesh, blood, and bone. Animals in slaughterhouses experience terror in the face of death. They fight for their lives and struggle to avoid pain. Birds love and grieve. In light of animals' suffering, we are urging people to embrace nonviolence in the face of senseless violence—against all beings—by going vegetarian. If someone doesn't like it, maybe it is because it makes them feel guilty for just saying, "Oh, how terrible," about the bus violence but not wanting to face the fact that they contribute to violence as well. To think otherwise is simply supremacist.

You know what it's like—you get started with something, thinking you'll have just this one or do it just this once, and then you think, "One more wouldn't hurt, right?" And before you know it, it's all out of hand.

Of course, when I do it, I end up eating half a package of Newman-Os, not egging 400 people's houses and cars.

That's right—a couple in Pennsylvania have recently been charged with perpetrating an 18-month "egging spree" that resulted in $7,000 worth of damage.

This news article explains that the couple started egging because they "wanted to retaliate against friends for damages they said were inflicted upon them" but moved on to other targets to avoid suspicion.

Hate to break it to you (geddit?), but 400 targets might arouse a little suspicion, don't you think?

Now, the county's district attorney is urging the victims of the spree to come forward, saying, "We have an obligation under the law to seek to make them whole and to get restitution for them."

Sure, the people who had to wash their cars and hose down their driveways deserve "restitution." But let's take this further: What is washing your car compared to being crammed into battery cages and having your beak cut off with a hot wire?

When you think about it that way, aren't the hens the number one victims here?

We think that all the victims of this crime deserve restitution. For this reason, we've written a letter to the DA with a logical suggestion: It takes up to 34 hours for a hen to produce a single egg, and during that time, she isn't watching TV—she's crammed into a cage that doesn't allow her to take a step or stretch one wing, and she has to balance on wire and do her business on the backs of other birds. If the DA has an "obligation" to "get restitution" for the victims of this crime, wouldn't justice best be served by sentencing the perpetrators to 34 hours of community service in a vegan soup kitchen or doing bird rescues for each egg wasted? We think so!

Check out our letter to the DA:

With the opening ceremonies of the 29th Olympiad just days away, our friends at PETA Asia-Pacific decided to get into the spirit of the games by awarding gold, silver, and bronze honors to Beijing's top vegetarian restaurants.

I know what you're thinking: vegetarian restaurants in China?!? Yes, my friends, it's true, but we really shouldn't be so surprised. After all, the Chinese gave the world tofu, that wonderful high-protein, versatile ingredient that can be used in everything from chocolate mousse pie to faux-ricotta lasagne (if you're still wrestling with tofu, check out our guide to vegetarian cooking).

And now with a drum roll, here are the top vegetarian restaurants in Beijing, as determined by PETA Asia-Pacific:

Gold: Taking the gold is Godly Vegetarian Restaurant. Beijing's oldest Buddhist vegetarian restaurant specializes in Chinese traditional classics, including KingKong HuoFang (stewed mock pork), sweet and sour mock ribs and fish, mock meatballs, mock duck, and much more.

Silver: Pure Lotus Vegetarian Restaurant—run by Tibetan monks—netted the silver. Voted "Best Vegetarian Fare" in the 2007 Beijing Reader Restaurant Awards, this restaurant serves up creatively named dishes such as "hot tears fill the eyes glazed noodles" and "countenance of mercy, words of love stir-fry." Yummy food with a side of zen.

Bronze: Coming in with the bronze is Still Thoughts, a relaxing and intimate oasis of vegetarian calm amidst a bustling alley in the heart of the city. Favorites include the spicy mock-pork intestines dry pot (testament to the fact that for any cruel and weird thing that humans would consider eating, human ingenuity can create a cruelty-free option!), shredded veggie-duck pancakes, and the faux-chicken hot pot.

And on a kinda-sorta related note, here are gold, silver, and bronze naked ladies! They are drawing attention to cruel practices on Chinese fur farms just in time for the Olympic Games:

So, Megan Webb has been crowned the 2008 West Virginia Beef Queen by the West Virginia Cattlemen's Association, and PETA has sent her a letter making it very clear that we've got "beef" with the Mistress of Meat.

We have invited the Beef Queen (I just can't get enough of that title!) to take a page out of our "Vegetarian Starter Kit"—and make the switch to a healthy, humane diet rather than promote cruelty to animals, environmental destruction, and life-threatening diseases—or take on one of our Lettuce Ladies in a tofu-wrestling match.

This earlier bout between a PETA member and a Playboy model will give you an idea of how the beef vs. lettuce throwdown might go:

And the prizes for the wrestling match aren't too shabby either. We've found a reformed rancher who is offering to donate $5,000 to a mutually acceptable charity of the winner's choosing. We've also agreed to let the winner design a meal for the loser. (Yes, we're that confident our Lettuce Lady will win.) And perhaps best of all, the winner will get bragging rights.

Check out the full letter here.

As though it were a gruesome scene in a horror movie, a Canadian Greyhound passenger found himself in the hands of a highly disturbed man this past weekend while en route from Edmonton to Winnipeg. Passengers riding the bus reported that Vince Weiguang Li jumped on top of 22-year-old Tim McLean and began stabbing him repeatedly before cutting off his head and allegedly consuming some of his flesh. Parts of McLean's ear, nose, and mouth were found in Li's pocket.

This tragic incident will certainly leave scars on the minds of the other passengers and the victim's family and friends. While it isn't every day that a human is violently attacked and eaten by another human, it's worth noting that it is the norm for many people not to give any thought to the fact that restaurants are serving flesh that comes from innocents who were minding their own business before someone came after them with a knife. How amazingly and conveniently compartmentalized the human mind is…

To stress this very point, PETA will be running an ad in the Portage Daily Graphic comparing the similarities between this gruesome bus butchering and the acts of cruelty and killing performed every day by the meat industry.

The horror that cows, chickens, and pigs face on factory farms goes on for a long time too. Chickens are violently tossed into cages with dozens of other birds and forced to live amid their own waste. Baby pigs have their testicles ripped out without any painkillers. And male calves are starved and chained inside tiny stalls until their flesh becomes soft and milky white before being slaughtered for someone's veal dinner.

PETA is running the ad to make people rethink the proposition that it is, rightly so, a criminal act to kill and eat our own kind but that it's "OK" to kill every other species but our own and eat them.

View behind-the-scenes footage of the photo shoot here.

Amanda Beard, the incredibly gorgeous U.S. swimmer, has posed naked for a brand-new anti-fur ad, just as the Olympics are about to kick-off in Beijing.The Olympic gold medalist unveiled the stunning "Be Comfortable in Your Own Skin" ad just hours after Beijing officials stopped her from holding a news conference, reportedly for "safety" reasons. Hmm, what’s so dangerous about a naked lady?! So the swimmer simply moved her location and revealed the stunning ad to a swarm of reporters and TV cameras elsewhere. Given that Beijing is hosting the Summer Olympic Games this year and the horrific conditions that have been documented on Chinese fur farms, now is a great time to remind folks that animals grow fur to protect themselves from the elements, not to cover 100-lb. fashionistas from paparazzi camera flashes. The ad shows that she's comfortable in her own skin and doesn't need to steal anyone else's. During the shoot Amanda sat down with us and explained: "I'd much rather go naked than ever put a dead animal on my body." Well said, Amanda!You can get on board by signing our pledge to go fur-free pledge.

Photos from Amanda's unveiling in Beijing:

Photo Credit: Patrick Alleyn

There's a lot of buzz on the interwebs about Eva Mendes' Calvin Klein ad that showed so much skin, it's been banned from U.S. television.I just wanted to remind the world that before Eva revealed her smoldering body for CK (a designer who WON'T use fur, by the way), she bared it all for the animals. How hot is Eva?!?!Not only do PETA and CK share a friendship with Eva and a dislike of fur—PETA has also had one or two ads banned from TV in our day. Heck, who are we kidding—we’ve had dozens. View our favorite banned ads here!