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You guys remember how the BBC dropped coverage of Crufts, the UK's big dog show, right? After that, we asked USA Network to do the decent thing and follow suit by refusing to air the American Kennel Club's Westminster Dog Show.

Well, it seems that USA is determined to wring a few bucks out of the suffering and illness of dogs and will be airing Westminster as planned.

OK, USA, if that's the way you want to play it, we're not above doing an end run and going directly to your oxygen supply. That's right—we've written to USA's Westminster sponsors (LifeLock, TransUnion, Intuit, the CityKids Foundation, the Flex Belt, and Pedigree) and asked them to withdraw their support. Read our letter here.

We obviously can't count on either USA or the AKC to put honor before profit, but we hope that there are still a few businesses out there that will step up and help make a difference for dogs.

Written by Jeff Mackey

If you haven’t seen this ad yet, you should check it out. It’s all part of our new campaign to let the world know that the breeders bear a direct responsibility for this country’s massive animal-overpopulation crisis. It shouldn’t take a rocket scientist to make the connection that people who are deliberately breeding animals for profit when millions are dying for lack of a good home are making a bad situation worse—but the breeders have a powerful lobby. So we’re hitting them where it hurts: This simple but effective ad will be running on the USA network tomorrow during the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show, which is like prom night for breeders. More on this after the show.

There was a great piece about this in The Washington Post today, and you can watch the ad below.

Dan Mathews' book, Committed: A Rabble Rouser's Memoir, is finally out, and it kicked off with a great piece in USA Today this morning. Our Dan has been working a very long time on this book, so it's really gratifying to see it get such a great reception all over the place. This thing is seriously gonna be huge. Plus, all the good reviews mean that the guy is just a pleasure to be around at the office—provided it's after 10 a.m. and you've had a cup of coffee or two to help you deal with all the optimism and general cheeriness emanating from his person. You can read Dan's USA Today interview here, but this was my favorite little bit:

It ain't easy annoying the hell out of nasty corporations, but someone's gotta do it, and Dan Mathews is a natural. If you want to hear him talk about his experiences in person, he's going on a book tour next week, and you can check his MySpace page for dates and locations. And if you do run into him at one of his booksignings, be sure to make him tell you the story about the priest costume.

Those too-hip-for-their-own-good trendsetters over at peta2 have just released a new ad with indie rock icon Ted Leo, which is almost too cool for me to even be talking about. Nonetheless, I figured I should at least attempt to do it some justice, as it's kind of a masterpiece. Ain’t it purty?

Ted Leo used to play DC all the time when I was in high school there, and I've been following his career for a while now, so I was really excited to see that he was working with peta2. If you haven't heard his music yet, you can listen to his new album here. And even if indie rock isn't really your bag, Ted is a fascinating person with a lot on his mind, so it's well worth checking out his interview...