-The faces of The Facebook mounted a campaign to save a ‘Gay Dog‘ from being put down by a Tennessee kill shelter. Gawker covered the story and the dog was rescued! Yay!

-Want to know your state’s animal-related laws and their penalties? The ASPCA has made it easy!

-The European Union is set to ban animal testing for cosmetics forever!

-Will 2013 be the year of ag-gag bills? Our old compatriot Susie Cagle thinks so.

-Arizona lawmaker seeks ban on awarding live animals as carnival prizes. And he’s a Republican!

-”Going Vegan in the NFL” has zero mention of ethics. Do any of these guys care about the leather they’re fumbling?

-Gross. Professional athletes are spraying deer antler velvet into their mouths to stimulate muscle growth. Ew, also.

-Dust off those passports and book your tickets: the biggest vegan festival in the world is coming to London this October! 

-Or, if you’re not up for international travels, here’s the NYC Vegetarian Food Festival lineup for 2013, and there’s more to come! How soon is March again?

• A screening of Forks Over Knives convinced Ozzy Osbourne to go vegan in an effort to stay healthy. Maybe he can take cooking classes with this guy.
• Same thing happened to Russell Brand after seeing the film. Meanwhile, over at Smith, students were in an uproar over rumors that the school was going completely vegetarian and locavore. Like that’s a bad thing?
• Famous veggie Paul McCartney released his first vegetarian cookbook this week, The Meat-Free Monday Cookbook. And on the other side of the Channel, the French government has said Non! to vegetarian meals in schools. What the foudre?
• Chrissie Hynde’s Akron restaurant, VegiTerranean, might be closing, but the singer is set to open up a new vegan eatery in LA with Ellen and Portia.
• Don’t throw meatballs at vegan actress Lea Michele if you don’t want to get kicked off the set of Glee. Well, unless they’re these.
• I don’t know about you, but I don’t get out to Jersey much. Which is why I’m thrilled the Cinnamon Snail Truck is heading to Manhattan and Brooklyn starting in mid-November.

This is one of Supervegan’s posts for Vegan MoFo 2011.

• Paul McCartney just got married, again, and had a vegan wedding. Yay! But what exactly does it mean when they say that one cake was chocolate and the other one was vegan?!
• Champs Bakery had its own location, then it shared space with Kingsland Sandwich Shop. Now it’s a vegetarian diner. I was excited to try their grub and see how it compares with Chicago Diner’s—best diner food ever!—but now I’m left wondering why they bill themselves as vegan when they serve dairy cheese in addition to Daiya? Thanks to an intrepid SuperVegan reader for the tip, which I confirmed with a call to Champs.
• I’m not a sandwich person, so Subway isn’t really on my radar. But it’s pretty major when a national chain tweets about Vegetarian Awareness Month and asks for food feedback, isn’t it?
• There’s a new mock meat in town, about to make its debut at Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary’s ThanksLiving feast this weekend. It’s apparently gluten-free and pretty damned delicious. Look for my full report on Monday!
• Okay, this isn’t explicitly about food, but how much do I love Tobey Maguire for sending back a free car because it had leather seats? That’s what I call a true superhero!

This is one of Supervegan’s posts for Vegan MoFo 2011.

• Farm Sanctuary’s been out rescuing pigs from the floods in the Midwest. Help them out with a donation, or foster a pig in need. (If you’ve got room for Babe in your abode, call 607-583-2225 x223.)
• Get behind LOHV’s efforts to get a dog-tethering ban passed. Call your council peeps about Intro. 545 (visit the League of Humane Voters of NYC for their info), and pony up some dough here.
• Tell those involved with the Rabies Challenge Fund that fewer rabies vaccines is no reason to infect, experiment on and kill poor, innocent pups. Send your e-mails to founder and co-trustee Kris Christine, co-trustee Jean Dodds and researcher Ronald Schultz, D.V.M.
• Oh, and nothing specifically to act on here, just FYI: Tony Blair doesn’t think it’s necessary to give up bangers and mash to save the planet.

• I’m in Portland, Oregon for a while. It really is the clean, quiet, inexpensive, leafy, bicycle-and-vegan-friendly town they say it is, dammit. Anyways, if you’re at the Let Live Conference this weekend, say hi! They’ve finally posted the conference schedule (PDF), so check that out.
• One highlight of the conference is Isa Chandra Moskowitz‘s “How To: Culinary Activism” on Sunday afternoon. Isa was just profiled in the Portland Mercury. “America’s Favorite Vegan Cookbook Writer Now Calls Portland Home.” Sob.
• The vegan minimall (home to Food Fight!, Herbivore, Sweetpea Bakery, Scapegoat Tattoo) is even nicer than any pictures I’ve seen led me to believe. And certain amongst our readers will be pleased to know that Herbivore’s got almost nothing brown for sale these days.
• Elsewhere, apes got legal rights in Spain, a country with no wild apes or apes in laboratories. But hey, it may be a start towards rights for apes elsewhere, or for other species in Spain.
• Ram Singh Munda, a single dad in Orissa, India, was arrested for adopting an orphan wild bear cub. Now he’s's in jail, his six-year-old daughter Dulki was sent to a state-run boarding school, and Rani the bear is in an isolation cell at the zoo, refusing to eat. People for Animals is campaigning for Munda’s release and has promised him a job at a wildlife rehabilitation center.
• Tennis fans: Wimbeldon keeps some hawks around who keep most of the pigeons away, but got in trouble recently for shooting some pigeons who were “creating a health risk around the players’ lawn and a restaurant”. Awful of course, but any worse than killing rats and mice and ants and roaches like nearly every institution does?
• What else … oh yeah, Oprah Winfrey’s not vegan anymore. She pledges “I will forever be a more cautious and conscious eater. That’s my commitment for now. To stay awakened.” I wonder how long it will be before she’s enlightened enough to eat that grilled sea bass she’s been missing.

It literally makes me sick when I think about the millions of animals who are tortured and killed in laboratories every year. Most people will decry animal testing when they’re confronted with images of cats with electronic devices sticking out of their brains or bunnies locked in boxes so that chemicals can be poured into their eyes. But after they compose themselves, a lot of people still come out in favor of vivisection, because if we didn’t test on animals, where would we be? And aren’t testers as ethical and responsible as possible?

As far as I’m concerned, there’s no excuse for animal testing, and until it ends, every day should be World Day for Animals in Laboratories. But since it’s not, we have World Week for Animals in Laboratories, which began this past weekend.

I never know where to begin with these things, so I’m just going to mention some of the more notable developments, old and new, as well as ways you can get involved. (I was going to try to work in this ”funny” Onion article, but it reads so close to reality that I found it hard to find much humor in it.)

Unfortunately, there’s never a shortage of depressing news on the animal research front, but in the interest of sanity, I’ll be brief. Most of us were shocked to learn that ”eco”-giant Ecover tests its products on animals—how does that make the company green? More recently, there was the stomach-turning news that a monkey had been boiled alive in its cage in a research facility. And then after all that, we’re presented with even more proof that animals are suffering for naught, since, as with the Vioxx scandal, more safety tests, this time on Botox, were found to be inaccurate.

Even more disturbing, the Washington Post reported that the Interagency Coordinating Committee on the Validation of Alternative Methods isn’t doing its job, which is to review and approve nonanimal tests. (Ask Congress to intervene here, and urge the FDA to pursue nonanimal testing alternatives here.)

But thankfully, the landscape isn’t all bleak. Last year, POM Wonderful stopped testing its products on animals as a result of protests, Israel outlawed animal testing on cosmetics, and the NIH stopped breeding chimps for research. (Project R&R—Release & Restitution for Chimpanzees in U.S. Laboratories—now seeks to end testing on all great apes in the U.S. and have them released to sanctuaries; show your support for the Great Ape Protection Act here.)

Just this month, Yale canceled a vivisector’s lecture—to kids!—following an outcry. The fact that there’s such a thing as the Johns Hopkins University Center for Alternatives to Animal Testing is cause for hope. And in what has to be the biggest positive development in vivisection in recent memory, three major U.S. agencies have agreed to phase out animal testing. Of course, as with the phasing out of gestation crates and the like, it will probably take at least 10 years, but it’s a step in the right direction.

With the tide seemingly starting to turn, now is a great time to do your part, since it’s likely your actions can have a greater impact than ever before. And there are so many ways you can help.

If you can afford to donate, put organizations like the American Anti-Vivisection Society and the National Anti-Vivisection Society on your list. (Also, be sure to enter your artwork in NAVS’ Art for Animals Classic.) The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine is one of the most amazing groups around, because not only does it push the FDA to implement nonanimal tests, it has convinced medical schools to stop using live animals in their labs, it advocates for a vegan diet, and it does it all by spotlighting concern for people as well as animals.

Another way to let your wallet speak for you is to find out which companies test on animals and to refuse to buy their products. (And if you can, drop them a line and let them know why.) The Coalition for Consumer Information on Cosmetics’ Leaping Bunny Program, In Defense of Animals’ list of cruelty-free companies and NAVS’ guide to companies that test or don’t test on animals can point you in the right direction.

If you’re an organized, articulate thinker, write letters to the editor in response to relevant news. (If you can’t keep up on your own, subscribe to DawnWatch to receive news digests and info on where to write in; FYI, the site isn’t restricted to vivisection news.) And there are always plenty of petitions to go around—simply sign up to receive e-mail alerts from animal protection organizations. To start, you can tell Mars to stop testing their products on animals (and ask your omni friends not to patronize them).

You can also set up a Memorial Field display commemorating animals used in research, ”adopt an activist,” and more.

If getting out and making noise is more your style, there are plenty of demonstrations going on. You can attend a protest of Mars on Saturday in NYC or any number of other IDA-sponsored demonstrations. Or join one of Win Animal Rights’ protests against Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS) customers and suppliers. (For activists in the UK, Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty is holding a Novartis protest on Saturday, its World Day for Laboratory Animals. You’ll also find a list of actions taking place in Europe and elsewhere on the site.)

Speaking of HLS, support the five remaining SHAC 7 prisoners, who were convicted under the Federal Animal Enterprise Protection Act, by donating to their Support Fund, writing letters and sending books to them in prison.

And don’t forget to speak out against the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act. It’s nothing more than an attempt to silence activists and to protect big-money interests that profit from the suffering of nonhuman animals.

Most of all, keep talking about animal testing. There’s a reason research facilities have no windows, and it’s up to us to make sure that the animals suffering on the other side of their walls aren’t forgotten.

Ex-Mrs. McCartney plots media domination, and lunch.

It looks like Heather Mills is going to host a vegan cooking show. My first reaction was, Great! It’s always pissed me off that the so-called Food Network won’t air even one cooking show that doesn’t feature slaughtered animals. (Cue my daydreams about V-TV, an all-veg, all-the-time network that does for veg*ns what Logo does for LGBTers.) But while Mills says she can’t wait to “share details of her vegan lifestyle,” she also says she hopes the show will make her more sympathetic and that she can’t wait to be the next Oprah.

Maybe the ends justify the means—if seeing the show will convince more people to go veg, then more power to her—but for once it would be nice to see someone forging ahead with completely altruistic motives. Or am I just being naive?

Today is the 13th annual World Vegan Day, which celebrates the foundation of the Vegan Society in 1944 and the coining of the word “vegan.”

Activists in Britain are campaigning for legal definitions of the words “vegan” and “vegetarian” and for more vegan pizza (they’re totally jealous of us New Yorkers).

Plenty of celebrations are happening around the world; check out ActiVeg or the Vegan Society for event listings. (New Yorkers: the American Vegan Society will be celebrating on Saturday, November 17, from 1pm – 4pm at Candle 79.)

Today’s a good day to get your non-veg friends a Vegetarian Starter Kit or a Why Vegan. Just remember to soften them up with some good food first.

Oh yeah, and happy All Saints Day, Day of the Dead, and Halloween-hangover-recovery day! (Maybe we should’ve chosen a less crowded date for our holiday…?)

Zen Burger!

• Zen Palate owner James Tu is launching a fast food chain, Zen Burger, and a frozen food line. Hopefully they’ll have a lot of vegan stuff. If nothing else, Zen Palate got better at labeling their vegan offerings after Tu took over the chain.
• Only cause we’ve touched on it before, it’s worth noting that UK Mars bars have lost their Vegetarian Society seal of approval because they use battery-farmed eggs. Silly vegetarians with all their weird distinctions!
• The state of Florida has stopped serving special kosher and halal meals to prisoners. Instead, observant convicts will have to make do with vegan food. “Either you have a choice of violating your own religion beliefs or you’re coerced to only eat vegan.” Awwww.
• On a related note, BBC TV show “Casualty” has been forced to make a script change – replacing a politically incorrect Muslim bomber with an apparently more socially acceptable animals rights bomber. At least both terrorists would eat the same food in Florida prisons.
• And speaking of kosher, SuperVegan reader Catres let us know about Sacred Chow’s upcoming Rosh Hashanah dinner, which will be held on Friday, September 14. It’s a prix-fix communal table deal which includes vegan challah, and pitchers of kosher vegan wine, cocktails, and beer.

Lentils saved Edward Batha’s life.

• Daily Mail journo goes vegan for a month–and actually learns something. This is a surprisingly sharp read, especially when compared to the usual whiny-reporter-gone-vegan fare.
• Huffington Post‘s Bruce Friedrich counters the media swell: there is no such thing as humane meat.
• Looks like Vegan Lunchbox is coming to an end. The site has been less frequently updated in the last year, as little Shmoo is being homeschooled and has little need for cute bento snack packs. Snag a copy of the book while they’re still available, so you can at least treat yourself well on lunch breaks.
• And this Sunday at Williamsburg’s Monkeytown HQ, two hours of video art and a four-course raw dinner by Pure Food and Wine‘s Matt Downes and Brandi Kowalski. There will be two seatings, at 7:30 and 10pm. Reserve early. $35 per person.

Smokers get cheaper life insurance, so why shouldn’t vegetarians? Animal Friends Insurance in the UK has launched “No Meat Rewards ethical life insurance.” (They also offer more expensive life insurance for meat-eating humans and health insurance for cats and dogs; 100% of net profits go to animal charities.) Says managing director Elaine Fairfax: “the life insurance industry needs to acknowledge the fact that being a vegetarian can have a very positive impact on life expectancy and reduce premiums accordingly.” Right on!

Happy, healthy vegan quints.

• Texas is vegging out for summer: last Tuesday’s Dallas Morning News had pieces on being veg in Dallas on the food and fashion fronts–because apparently it’s “the new stylish living.”
• Washington Square’s vegan NY Dosas cart makes New York Magazine‘s list of the top 20 street eats–but at #16?!
• Dave Attell likes vegan girls. “They’re all very healthy and out there and spinning around to music only they can hear, but let’s face it–I’m old, I’m a drunk, and I don’t know if it’s gonna happen .. But if there’s any out there, they should email me.”
• The Guardian asks, “Do fish have feelings too?” Um, yes.
• And hot on Nina Planck‘s heels, a father of quints is demanding full custody because the kids’ (terrible, irresponsible) mom wants to continue raising them as (malnourished, on-the-verge-of-death) vegans.

Dr. Benjamin Spock, humanitarian.

• Doctor Spock recommended a mostly vegan diet for babies, children and adults. And he sold way more books than Nina Planck ever will.
• At the prodding of one legislator’s 16-year-old daughter, Israel has outlawed animal testing for cosmetics.
• Posh Victoria Beckham carries vegan diet book Skinny Bitch around. Sales explode–hey, it’s selling better than Isa on Amazon!
• An Indian vegetarian won his civil suit for “aggravated damages” against Malaysian Airlines after they served him a meaty on-board meal in 2003. He received 200,000 rupees (about $4,124) in damages, twice as much as this Indian family did for “mental torture.”
• And I’ve always had mixed feelings about raw food, but this Chinese man is giving “live” a whole new (terrible, punny) meaning: he claims eating live frogs and mice for the last forty years has cured his stomach ails.

Something’s wrong with this picture when it encourages more, rather than less, harm to animals!

About a month ago, the recipe for Mars Bars in the UK was altered to include rennet. After significant outcry from vegetarians, the company changed their mind and decidied to stick to a rennetless candy bar. And now, they’ve decided that they’re sufficiently impressed by the market power of the vegetarian lobby that they’re gunning for official approval from the Vegetarian Society.

While this will require a few adjustments in the production, it still won’t make the bars vegan. (One of the provisions, for example, is that the eggs be “free-range.”) And, as Vegan Porn Taste Better pointed out, there’s not going to be any less harm to cows: “rennet is extracted from calves’ stomachs, and these are the same calves who aren’t growing up to produce milk for the chocolate, what with being born male and all.” Not to mention that many “vegetarians” eat rennet all the time anyway, as it’s in many (if not most) cheeses. In any event, putting “Suitable for Vegetarians” and the Society seal on Mars bars wrappers will result in more vegetarians eating them, and more harm to animals. That kinda sucks.

(I’m pretty sure that all of this is unrelated to the North American Mars bar, which is a different product despite similar corporate parentage.)

• The New York Times reports from the trenches on cock fighting in Louisiana, and how the legislature is (supposedly) taking steps to curb it.
• The Chicago Tribune and their supports councilman Jack Kelley’s bill to ban foie gras in the city.
• And speaking of media (whores), Heather Mills is spreading the good word at London’s Incredible Veggie Show later this month.

They could turn everyone into meat eaters instead.

There’s been a bit of brouhaha in the UK press over a “The secret plans to turn us all vegetarian”, the Agency got a bit defensive, stating “Promoting the potential benefits of a vegan diet in tackling climate change was a suggestion offered by a member of the public. The Environment Agency believes this is a matter of personal choice, but it would be wrong of us to dismiss the already very public research showing the benefits that reducing the consumption of animal protein, and therefore methane emissions from farm animals, can have on tackling emissions.” The UK Government’s offical guide to greener living does indeed state “production of meat and dairy has a much bigger effect on climate change and other environmental impacts than that of most grains, pulses and outdoor fruit and vegetables.”

Heather Mills goes capital “V”

Heather Mills recently announced she is now vegan! After learning more about how hideous factory farming is and intent on reducing its destructive impact on the planet, Mills decided to take her vegetarianism to the alpha level. “I could never go back to eating meat, fish or dairy. I hate the cruelty of factory farming,” she says.

The former model and estranged wife of Sir Paul McCartney joins a short yet influential list of celebrities using their star status to spotlight the virtues of veganism. Mills says, “Following a plant-based diet not only benefits your health massively but also makes a huge difference to the planet, to animals and to feeding the world. My hope is to continue to put the message out there.” Heather also says it’s an “obscenity” to take newborn calves from their mothers so people can have their milk which is designed for cows and not people.

Regardless of her personal dramas and press coverage, I give Heather Mills’ pledge to end animal suffering a gold star!

In 2003, McGowan put a 27lb turkey on his head and walked backwards for 11 miles shouting at overweight people to bring attention to the obesity epidemic.

Remember when “vegetarian” artist Mark McGowan ate a swan as an anti-royalist protest? Well, now he’s an “animal rights activist” and he’s just eaten a corgi live on the radio (the very cool Resonance FM). Yoko Ono was there and had a taste too. They both agreed that corgi minced with apple and onion tasted disgusting.

The corgi was not killed for this stunt–s/he died on a breeding farm. In his defense, McGowan said, “I know some people will find this offensive and tasteless but I am doing this to raise awareness about the RSPCA’s inability to prosecute Prince Philip and his friends shooting a fox earlier this year, letting it struggle for life for five minutes and then beating it to death with a stick.” This is not McGowan’s first fox-related meat eating: in 2004, he “dined on fox to highlight the plight of crackheads.”

Diagram of a fruit fly will-finding contraption

• It’s the 15th National Vegetarian Week in the UK. This year’s focus is on the environmental benefits of vegetarianism.
• Scientists at Free University Berlin have deemed that fruit flies have free will. While I can’t endorse the research used to prove such a thing, this will help convince people that animals aren’t just reactive machines.
• A litter of two-legged chihuahuas serves as a disturbing (but still darn cute) reminder of why dog breeding is maybe not such a good thing. (via Poop City)
• A Long Island man was arrested for stealing copper pipes from an abandoned house to pay the vet bill for his cat who was injured in that same house. Do your animal-dependents have health insurance? (also via Poop City)
• Presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich was recently a guest on animal activist Bill Maher’s talk show (video, transcript). Towards the end of the segment there’s an odd, circuitous discussion of Kucinich’s veganism, mostly as it relates to health. It seems like Kucinich is going out of his way to not explicitly identify as a vegan. Hmm.

As of May 1, Masterfoods, makers of popular candy bars such as Mars, Snickers and Twix, has switched to using calf-stomach-derived rennet to coagulate the milk for their chocolate. UK veggies, including the Vegetarian Society, are up in arms over this “backward step” and have whipped up a petition to try to get Masterfoods to switch back to a vegetarian coagulant.

I’m impressed that these vegetarians insist this restricts their chocolate choices ever so much–I guess they only like calf stomach in their cheese?

Update: Mars backpedals, will remain rennet-less.

“Ni Musculos Ni Secreciones” (Neither Muscles Nor Secretions) is a gallery show comprised of various work by 15 vegan artists from Spain, the UK and the US. It’s on view every day from noon until 10pm through Wednesday, May 16. If you aren’t lucky enough to be in the Madrid area this week, check out some of the great images on the website (more coming soon) and show your support by friending them on MySpace. The show is sponsored by the mighty Sheese and La Boutique Vegetariana, a Spanish mail-order operation with all manner of exotic-sounding goods.

Posh Spice, aka Victoria Beckham, is pissed that a pair of lambs Gordon Ramsey entrusted to her care for “a bit of a holiday” are actually being fattened up in preparation for his “F-Word” show’s season finale. Posh, “a devout vegetarian” according to her amazing spokespeople, is “distraught” over the situation. PETA has gotten involved, and is trying to rally support to save the lambs.

It’s nice to see Posh showing some emotions–and here I thought robots couldn’t cry. I stand corrected. Girl power!

It may sound sci-fi, but scientists now theorize that mobile phones could be to blame for Colony Collapse Disorder that’s struck bees across the U.S. and Europe. Scientists say the radiation given off by mobile phones and other high-tech gadgets may be interfering with the bees’ navigation systems, preventing them from finding their way back to their hives.

Although sufficient hard proof of this theory is still lacking, research already suggests that cell phone radiation may have serious adverse effects on human health, causing brain tumors, reduced sperm counts and loss of brain cells. If cell radiation can do this to people, imagine what it could do to bees…

“The goldfish simply stay away from the surface and all is well.”

• Veg-friendly online dating as covered by Columbia J-School. Definitely not being discussed over at Vegan Porn–I wonder why.
• More than 3,000 pigs died when a Canadian hog farm caught fire last Saturday.
• Lewes, England farmers are protesting Mayor Merlin Milner, who recently snubbed the traditional menu for Lewes’ “Town and Country” dinner (steak and kidney pudding), opting instead for a vegetarian meal.
• I don’t want my food fried in tasty trans fats in this deep fryer–it’s also an aquarium.
• An Arizona woman was found guilty of child abuse and could face up to 51 years in prison for starving her kids on a “vegan” diet of ground carrots.
• Brooklyn’s own Red Bamboo wins Time Out‘s reader award for Best Vegetarian Restaurant, beating out HanGawi, Mana, Vegetarian Dim Sum House and SuperVegan reader favorite Wild Ginger.
• And this week’s Vegan Job Watch: Organic Avenue seeks shop assistant, Counter seeks part-time server and mystery “established downtown vegan restaurant” seeks part-time office manager.