Two of the nation's largest lobbyists--the NRA and the Humane Society of the United States--are in a battle in Pennsylvania. Nowhere is the NRA political and financial influence felt as strongoy as in this mid-Atlantic state. But, the 11.6 million member HSUS is just as deterkined to get an anti-cruelty bill passed, a bill the NRA vigorously opposes.

Reuters reports today that the Spanish Parliament's Environmental committee has approved legislation to extend the fundamental "right to life and freedom", to our cousins the Great Apes.

"Yes your honor, that's the one! He did it!"

What a giant leap for human consciousness!

We must never forget the deep connection between volunteer soldiers and the American hunting culture.

After Saturday's death of Eight Belles in the Kentucky Derby, PETA decided to try to steal some of the national attention for their own agenda. I wrote about the issues related to Eight Belles in my sports blog, but PETA's take on the matter is so ridiculous that people need to hear the real facts of the matter.

As a bit of background, Sen. Clinton mentioned at campaign stops last week that she would be cheering for Eight Belles - a filly - in the Derby. She also said that Chelsea would be attending the race, and that she had given instructions to bet some of mom's money on Eight Belles.

Eight Belles finished second, then had to be killed after a bizarre accident that saw her break both front ankles while galloping out after the race. No one is sure what happened, but that didn't stop PETA from first calling for the suspension of her jockey, then sending an open letter to Sen. Clinton about the horrors of the Derby, the Triple Crown and horse racing in general.

Here are some excerpts from that highly misleading letter:

It has been a pretty bad week for animals.  I would like to highlight some of these disturbing incidents and findings, one of which is receiving widespread media traction, the others are sort of flying under the radar.

We all know about what happened to the race horse Eight Belles after her second place finish at the Kentucky Derby.  Also making national news were the illegal shooting deaths of a 3 elephant seals in San Simeon, California and 6 Sea Lions laying in government approved open traps on the Columbia River at the border of Washington and Oregon. Finally, the Agriculture Department's Food Safety and Inspection Service found humane handling violations of cattle at some of the nations largest meat processing plants during a review of slaughterhouses providing meat to the National School Lunch Program.

Orlando Seaworld's current Shamu the Killer Whale show is entitled "Believe". It is an epic stage piece, consisting of 4 killer whales, 8 whale trainers, and one child from the audience. In addition to a huge water tank there is a stage area with stairs, a balcony, and a truss system that allows the human characters to jump from great heights into the water. Jets shoot water towards the center of the pool, and seven video screens depict, in addition to large scale simultaneous playback of event, episodes from a narrative film purporting to show how Shamu came to bond with a human trainer as a young boy.

The story, oddly, begins with an introduction by the CEO of Anheuser-Busch, the distillery that supports Sea World and Seaworld's conservation efforts. (When you stand at a urinal at Seaworld, your face is inches away from an "advertorial" depicting a sunset beach scene, attesting to Anheuser-Busch's support for Seaworld Environmental programs).

PETA has, in my opinion, done something very good. According to the Times,PETA will offer an X-prize like competition for development of test tube meat.  The idea, clearly, is that if oen can produce steak and chicken without killing animals, then the moral dilemma many of us face when confronted with a cheeseburger (strong desire to eat it vs the belief that the pain caused in producing it is bad) will vanish  Yet, I read in the same article that this is quite controversial. Apparently some animal rights advocates are opposed to fake meat. My question for you, dearest Kossacks, is what is the argument against fake meat. (In additional to preventing animal suffering, fake meat production would also cut back on the environmental destructiveness of factory farms)

Of course it is open to debate whether such test-tube meat would really be "fake." Unlike Boca burgers, which I enjoy but which also are quite different from hamburger.

The Times article is here

Photo by Xirzon

In the wake of the HSUS Chino slaughterhouse investigation, several members of Congress are now calling for video cameras to be installed at slaughterhouses.

Wrote Erik Marcus recently. (Watch the HSUS video here)

Video cameras are an excellent, economical supplement or alternative to hiring, training, and staffing more USDA inspectors to regulate the meat and dairy industries. Video cameras would help create more transparency in animal agriculture and would likely result in better accordance with the laws protecting public health and preventing animal cruelty.

But many people in animal agriculture don't want video cameras. One must wonder, what are they hiding?

*Disturbing image below. Block images if you'd rather not view that.

A few days ago I posted a diary about how the Chinese government, in its attempts to "clean up" Beijing for the Olympics, has not only been arresting and jailing human rights activists but has also been rounding up thousands of cats and beating them to death or locking them up in cat concentration camps on the outskirts of Beijing to die of disease and starvation.

Today I received an email from a reader asking me if I would post about a petition over at the CARE2 petition site. In my original post I provided a link to the Chinese Embassy so that people could express their concerns directly to the Chinese government.  The current petition, however is directed to the mainstream broadcast media in the United States, which have entirely ignored this issue. Mainstream media attention is very important.  A couple of years ago a similar campaign against dogs in China was halted after the western media focused on what was happening.

A California Assembly Bill (AB 2296) called the Animal Enterprise Protection Act would censor a particular type of political blogger: animal advocates. The bill would "prohibit the posting of publicly available information on activist websites, restrict access to public meetings, and require heavy-handed penalties for non-violent civil disobedience."

Hey there. I'm new here, and I've done a lot of commenting, written a couple of silly diaries, and generally kinda eased into this whole DailyKos experience. So now I'd like to have an actual, reasonable conversation.

I'm going to talk about why I think we should all be vegetarians (and not vegans), and I'm going to try and do it in a calm, reasonable manner without resorting to cheap stunts like labeling our treatment of animals as murder, shocking you with how cruelly we treat our food, or basically getting all high-and-mighty at you.

I just want to talk, that's all.

Disclaimer:  In all these diaries, I speak as a mother.  I am horrified by what I am learning about Monsanto and about what it is doing to farmers and to food.  Harking back to women's role over millennia, I have a familial and a societal (society being the larger family) obligation to warn.  In that role, I am free to err in the direction of too much caution but I may NEVER err in the other direction - acceptance of things as safe if there is ANY signal at all that suggests there even MIGHT be a problem. Common sense trumps the nitpicking parsing of science in this obligation.  Illogical things, greedy things, cruel things, massively controlling things,  send up flares.  And for those, mothers warn.  

Monsanto is pushing the USDA to institute NAIS, the National Animal Identification System, which is a global tracking system for every farm animal in the country. http://goexcelglobal.he.net/...  

How should anyone who loves animals feel about this?

Looking closely at what Monsanto is doing to animals already may help add some clarity.

We raise registered Angus cattle here in Oklahoma. In the latest issue of the Angus Journal, the most influencial magazine in the beef industry, there's an article saying Obama authored the horse slaughter ban in Illinois. It also says he is on record as supporting animal rights. I had not heard that about him before.

The horse slaughter ban here in the US is a disaster for horses. They're being shipped out of country, sometimes thousands of miles, and often killed under much worse conditions that here in the US. Or they're being turned out to fend for themselves by people who can no longer afford to feed them.

The days of the $4 chicken are over. Last month British celebrity chef Jaimie Oliver mounted a campaign to expose exactly how chickens are being reared for consumption. Today, kudos to Jaimie, he has reversed the tide singlehanded. The battery chicken has been defeated. Well, almost.

Marc Cooper, an RSPCA farm animal scientist, said: "If people knew how the average chicken was treated before it ended up as their Sunday roast, they would probably be disgusted."

The upshot is that free range chickens are now given a second look (just like HRC!) Yes, they are dearer but at the end of the day you will be eating (that is if you're not a vegetarian) a properly raised bird, with the full knowledge that it's not pumped up with inferior food pellets, chemicals, antibiotics and God knows what else.

Lately, I have been writing mostly about soaring food prices but this is an issue that needs airing as I suspect most people, and rightly so, would sanction a cheap $4 roast chicken dinner. Hear me out before you do so.

After you tuck your kids in tonight, say a prayer and give thanks that George Bush and his intrepid band of warriors are tirelessly fighting the war on terror and defending our homeland. For thanks to their efforts, another dangerous terrorist no longer walks the streets among us.

I have no idea if Obama eats meat or not, I just thought if his name was in the title my diary might get more play.  ;)

This is my second in a series about becoming a meat reducer to help reduce global warming.  For those of you interested, I am posting some easy vegetarian (and sometimes seafood) recipes and/or ideas for those who might like to reduce meat but may not have ideas on what to cook.  I try to leave dairy/eggs out of it too since the idea is to reduce dependence on animal derived food since livestock are a primary source of global warming gases.

If someone else has already diaried this, I'll delete this entry.  Video footage from an undercover investigator working for an animal rights group has uncovered systematic abuse and torture of sick cows at a California slaughterhouse, in violation CA law and USDA regulations, in an attempt to get them to pass inspection.  Link to the Washington Post after the jump.

This evening I received an email forwarded by the animal behaviorist who helped us with Jack, our Alaskan Malamute, who had some initial behavioral issues.

She had received it apparently by mistake, but forwarded it on to her clients for dissemination and feedback.

I'm plopping it on DailyKos, ePluribus Media and Docudharma to open a discussion on other issues and where candidates stand on them.

I'd like folks who know of a candidate's actions with regard to animals to put the candidate's last name first in their subject, then " -- good" or " -- bad" next to the name, and have the content of the comment itself contain any good, bad, or additional information. I hope to tally this up later and present results. Please don't get into candidate wars; just post what you can verify and include a link to support your statement.  Please note that this also includes Republican candidates; please follow the same procedure, if you've information to add.

Thank you.