Feel like ranting? Check out the article that WatermelonBoy sent in: " if vegetarians can get good meals throughout Melbourne, from cheap to expensive, do we still need dedicated vegetarian restaurants?" People are silly. Link.

queervegan sent in the most disturbing prison interrogation story I've seen in a long time (US military prisons don't count - they're in a special category of hell): while trying to get an inmate to confess to a murder, authorities in India reportedly killed 100 of his pigeons by wringing their necks and chopping off their wings. AR group People For Animals is bringing the jail superintendent and jailer up on charges that will hopefully land them in jail for 5 years. Apparently they're not allowed to rip these boneheads' fingers off to get them to confess.

"Hufu is also a great cannibal convenience food -- no more Friday night hunting raids! Stay at home and enjoy the flavorful, convenient human flesh alternative. " Meet Hufu - Human Flavoured Tofu. No idea if it's vegan, but really, we brought this one on ourselves...

As an anonymous submitter recently confirmed, there is indeed something known as hunting porn. A company called Sexy Outdoor Sports recently shot a movie where a woman shoots and kills a buffalo and then has sex next to the corpse. In their summary of the event, Adult Video News says, "AVN has always been a staunch defender of First Amendment guarantees of free expression, notably when the material involves consenting adults, but in the case of Sexy Outdoor Sports, we draw the line. Animals cannot consent." Rock. On. AVN also ran a story detailing the revulsion of many in the porn industry, which, depending on your knowledge of porn, probably says a lot about hunting porn's place on the ladder of decency. For their part, the video company sent in a standard rebuttal ("if you don't like hunting, we're just going to have to agree to disagree"), wherein we also learn that while hunting porn may be new, something called fishing porn has been around for years. (warning: all links in this post go to Adult Video News, which may or may not look worse in your workplace browsing history than Vegan Porn.)

Friggity-frack, there are just too many people out there bringing down the curve for the rest of modern civilization, at least if you grade on the "tendency to bring about the plague" scale. As Dagda Samildanc notes, people are still eating "bush meat" (flesh from illegally slaughtered primates), a practice that's given us two new retroviruses. This adds to the list of retroviruses already suspected of being initially spread from the eating of chimps and monkeys, including, oh, how about HIV? Bush meat hunters, when disease researchers actively seek you out because they find you so damned fascinating, it's time to consider a new career, preferably before you get us all killed.

Dave Noisy reports that British Columbia prisoners can finally get vegan meals. This has been available in federal prisons for quite some time, but apparently each province has a different concept of human rights, or at least the case seems to need arguing at every institution. I don't quite understand what the problem is, since a vegan meal will generally be cheaper, store easier, and (I'm guessing) will probably reduce the levels of aggression in prison in general. This news doesn't change my summer vacation plans any, but it's good to see vegan food options show up in more and more places, even if this particular place doesn't rate too high in the Zagat/Michelin guides.