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The News of the Day

RIP Donald Watson, 1910-2005

Dave Noisy passed along this sad news via Joseph Connelly: "It is with great sadness that I convey that Donald Watson, who coined the word 'vegan' and founded the world's first vegan organization in 1944 -- aptly named The Vegan Society -- has died. Watson passed away on Wednesday evening at his north England home after a brief illness. He was 95. Funeral arrangements are still being arranged. The Watson Family requests privacy while details are sorted out. More information will be posted as it becomes available."

The Rest of the News

Cloned dog gets top invention nod from Time

An anonymous source (who I shall call Wayne) notes that Time Magazine has voted the cloned dog as the top invention of 2005. This isn't particularly interesting or inspiring, but I do take solace in the fact that one of the runners-up was a robot cat. Link

Bush thinking about taking grizzlies off of endangered list

kunsjoi reports that the Bush Administration is looking to drop grizzly bears from the endangered species list, because there are now a whopping 600 of them in the lower 48 states. Of course, there will be a strict quota system in place to "manage" this "resource," so I'm sure we have nothing to worry about. One can only hope that the decline in hunting's popularity will outpace the ongoing "re-availability" of species to hunt (we did a story about cougars recently), and this will sort itself out before we run out of animals. Link

Pig fails to escape, people fail to evolve

I've seen enough stories about animals attempting to escape slaughter by now that the interesting thing isn't that animals don't want to be killed (duh), but that people are so damned moronic. Check out the comments in the latest story sent in by AimeeLeigh79: "'You just feel badly for the poor thing,' said neighbor Barbara Williams, who watched from a safe distance near the street." As I generally try to avoid profanity on the front page posts on VP, I'll just end this with the link.

Naked Chef: "It's a beautiful creature, but it's tasty"

Kirk writes "I guess celebrity chef Jamie Oliver (aka The Naked Chef) is in hot water over slitting a conscious lamb's throat on his TV show. He justified it by saying that 'lambs are tasty and we are at the top of the food chain.' So I guess it would be ok for someone to feed him to a tiger on live TV. After all they're higher on the food chain than humans." While it's legal to kill animals for food in one's home in Italy, an EU directive states that the animal should be stunned first, which wasn't the case here. Of course, as they say, people eat lamb, not a lamb, so I imagine things will keep on trucking. Going beyond this numbskull's actions, how exactly does one learn to kill an animal "humanely" without lots of incredibly painful and traumatic (for the animal) "practice" that's commonly known as cruelty?

Now, is that farmed salmon soda or wild salmon soda?

If I was confused over when Thanksgiving was before, I'm over it now: it's a sure sign of an impending holiday when Jones Soda comes out with a disturbing new flavour (and we write about it): according to Steve L, the flavour of the year is salmon. Yes, salmon soda, a.k.a. the pop that will make you a permanent member of the club soda club, lest your tastebuds be assaulted further. As we reported last year, their other novelty flavours (including turkey and mashed potatoes) were vegan. There's no word on the veganosity of the new salmon soda, and frankly, no rush.

Fat-pocalypse now: is the "health argument" dead?

AimeeLeigh79 sends word that Americans are eating like never before, and unfortunately, I don't mean they've all gone vegan. The fast food industry is seeing record breaking numbers, fueled, apparently, by the fact that people just don't seem to care about obesity anymore. It's possible that the prevalence of obesity (according to a new study, 9 out of 10 men and 7 out of 10 women in America will become overweight) has made it not only acceptable, but also a perceived inevitable outcome. In the wake of all that, do the typical health arguments surrounding a vegan diet stand a chance?

Low carb diets reduce energy to the heart

Dagda Samildanc writes in to advise us of yet another problem with low-carb diets: it appears that they can reduce energy to the heart. That sounds scary and alarmist, so let's explain further: a low carb diet can REDUCE the ENERGY stored in YOUR HEART. Those on the diets also had "stiffer" hearts that didn't relax as much as they used to. This is a symptom shared by people with diabetes, obesity and heart disease. British Heart Foundation medical director Peter Weissberg says it best: "Diet devotees can be reassured that this research in no way suggests that the high fat-low carb regime is going to give them heart failure. However, they should be aware that such unbalanced diets are a major insult on their bodies' metabolism and, as this study shows, may be having direct effects on their hearts, particularly since they tend to be high in saturated fat. We would certainly not recommend high fat-low carb diets to anyone who wants to lose weight and look after their heart." Heh, "major insult."

OK, what would you write on this one?

Riding on our earlier food embossing vibe, mixed in slightly with the flower cans, we've now got the Magic Bean: a sprout in a can that's got some kind of message on it. You now know what I know. Link.

Burgers, children, asthma trifecta found

kunsjoi reports that scientists may have found a link between hamburger consumption and asthma in children, and this ain't no 3% risk for people who eat 372 burgers a day, either: "[The study] showed that eating hamburgers more than once a week nearly doubles the risk of asthma attacks and wheezing. Researchers took lifestyle factors, such as other food the children ate, into account." What's more, if the findings are correct, green vegetables can't be used as a defense. It's like the only viable option is to... stop eating cows. Whoa... Link.

EU reaffirms commitment to ending animal testing

Triddle reports that the EU is taking more steps (or talking more words) towards ending animal testing "in the long run," with some basic agreements to cut back in the nearer term. While the long run could also include heat death of the universe and a PDA that syncs reliably with my Mac, I'm going to be optimistic about this one simply because it's the EU, and they seem to be making more strides than other bushier countries. They've already taken action against battery cages and cosmetics testing, and these things take an impossibly long time, but seeing as scientists managed to triple the number of animals used in the past 30 years, you'd think cutting back wouldn't be such a challenge, right? Again, I'm staying positive on this one, even if I have to hold this fake grin for an hour. Link.

VP: Your timely source for holiday humour

...So American Thanksgiving was last weekend hasn't happened yet? Huh. We do our in metric up here. Anyway, Dave Noisy sent in a cool Bizarro comic that hooks in a few recent holidays, and it's not like I'm going to hold onto it for a year before I post it, so here you go, read on for the pic. (Updated to reflect the fact that I do not in fact own a time machine, and in my sleep-deprived state, misread "the fourth Thursday of November" as "November 4th")

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